Out
by Red Chucks
Summary: Jonatton Yeah? loves sniffing out a good story nearly as much as he loves causing scandal and pain for those who cross him. And Dan Ashcroft just went and slipped up. (This story wasn't meant to happen. I don't know how it will end.)
1. Chapter 1

**I really wanted to write something light and fluffy. But this happened instead. Sorry.**

* * *

><p>Jonatton Yeah? loved learning new facts. Information was power and he had gained a wonderful amount of power this week.<p>

For example: contrary to popular belief, Dan Ashcroft would not be appearing in Nathan Barley's new show, despite having signed release papers. The new rumour went that Claire Ashcroft had belted Barley one before ringing her mother, who was a lawyer, and getting the whole show pulled from production under the threat of serious legal action.

Contrary to popular belief, Dan Ascroft hadn't really been contemplating suicide before he went and jumped out of the Trashbat window. Depressed, yes. Desperate, yes. Suicidal, no.

Contrary to popular belief, the House of Jones did actually have a second bedroom that both Jones and Dan occasionally used, and not just the one which Claire had claimed when she'd moved in three months ago.

And contrary to popular cynicism, DJ Jones' name was _actually_ Jones, and he was actually _younger_ than his press age. The Shoreditch rumour mill had been letting them all down it seemed, but that was about to change.

Jonatton Yeah? had a nose for a story, and all of these "popular beliefs" and the truths behind them, were facts he'd managed to glean in the last week through a series of well-times visits and carefully crafted heart-to-hearts with a very emotional and sleep deprived Miss Ashcroft. Because despite his "ironic" attitude to life and seeming boredom with his job as SugarApe - now SugaRape - editor, Jonathan was still a journalist and an expose on their (soon to be ex) feature columnist was just too good an opportunity to miss. Dan had been holding out on him, writing shoddy, half-hearted articles for months, and living a private life that Jonatton should have known about in order to exploit the self-righteous wanker for a profit.

Popular belief also had it that Dan Ashcroft was a paragon of 'don't-give-a-fuck' masculinity. There was a bin bag full of fan-mail back at the SugaRape office to attest to the fact that most of their female readership wanted to be thrown across Dan's desk and treated with passionate, toe curling, disdain. Nathan, Rufus, Ned - just about every guy in his twenties that Jonathan knew! - were testament to the fact that men wanted to impress Dan with their exploits and follow him like sheep.

Anyone who was anyone knew that Dan was rough, straight as an arrow (even when he was wanking a builder), and sardonic. He was self-destructive yet always in control.

Except apparently he wasn't any of those things.

And apparently, Jonatton thought to himself with a sly grin as he pulled out his phone and started snapping pictures, if you called by the decrepit "House of Jones" early enough in the morning, you could manage to catch both Dan and the mysterious Jones making out like teenagers on the couch in their front room, lazy as sloths as they moved against one another, whispering declarations of love into one another's mouths.

Now _this_ was interesting.

Jonatton held his breath as he watched Dan skim his good hand up Jones' skinny torso, pushing the t-shirt up so he could run his palm across the pale skin and prominent ribs of the young DJ. Jones gave a shiver in response which quickly became a moan when Dan began to kiss and bite his neck.

"I love you," Dan breathed as he pushed Jones' hair back and nibbled on his ear. "I- I'm sorry."

"Oh, Dan. Don't be. Don't be," Jones whispered, running his fingers through Dan's uneven hair. "We'll be ok. It'll be ok. Please just stop saying sorry. We'll- Oh god, Dan!"

Jones grabbed Dan's chin in both hands and kissed him like he was worried the taller man would disappear and Jonathan's lip curled at such sappy adoration.

He made a some quick marks in his notepad before snapping a few more photos on his phone and moving silently back to the front door. He hadn't meant to walk in on the two, what? lovers? but it was a cheeky bonus and no mistake. And if the pictures were grainy and a bit blurred? Well, all the better for making it seem seedy and underhanded. All the better for ruining Dan's reputation. And that was what he was definitely going to do.

Yesterday Dan had sent in his letter of resignation, a short and loveless letter stating that he had come to his senses and wouldn't be returning to work at SugaRape even when his leg and arm healed. It had been like a slap in the face and Jonathan knew the magazine wouldn't last long without Dan's loyal readership. But if the ship was sinking, Jonatton Yeah? was not going down without taking his sweet, petty revenge. He'd make it so that no publication, or reader, in the city would want to go near Ashcroft even with a long stick and two pairs of gloves. All he had to do now was think of a nice, juicy title for the article. And get a few more sordid details from Claire.

He walked around the corner to the dingy cafe the Ashcrofts seemed to call home and began to write out what would hopefully be the death of Dan Ahscroft's cool credentials. An hour later he texted Claire to say he was in the area and did she want to catch up for a coffee. She replied in the affirmative and Jonatton allowed himself another self-indulgent smile. She was lonely and frustrated and younger than she tried to seem and she'd been so grateful to have someone to cry on when her big brother went and jumped out of that window. They'd met at the hospital and it had just been too easy. He was sure that if he asked, casually, how Jones was coping with Dan's convalescence and resignation, you know, as his boyfriend and all, Claire would give him the goods.

He scrolled back through the photos one more time before she arrived and gave himself a two finger clap in recognition of his own brilliance. You could practically see the 'I love you' on Dan's lips, the 'oh Dan!' on Jones's, and he didn't doubt that the SugaRape readers would see it too if he told them it was there.

Dan Ashcroft was going to be hauled out of the closet whether he wanted it or not and Jonatton knew that, even though they claimed to be cool with just about everything, most of the SugaRape crowd would be uncomfortable to hear that their Preacher Man was a raging gay, and that they hadn't been told before now. This was going to be brilliant.


	2. Chapter 2

Claire crept into the house as quietly as she could, hoping she'd be able sneak in and possibly take Dan and Jones by surprise. When she'd left earlier that morning they'd been lounging around in their pajamas sharing a bowl of corn flakes and arguing the finer points of trip-hop as a musical genre and whether it was legitimate to claim jazz as one of it's influences. Dan had been chuckling and waving his spoon in Jones' face while he listed off the reasons why and trip-hop was the death of music and even worse than his rave rubbish but he'd been animated and engaged and Claire hadn't seen him so close to smiling in weeks.

Most of the time Claire didn't really understand how Dan could bear to be around Jones. As far as she could see he was one of the Idiots Dan seemed to hate so much, all loud music and stupid hair, but the two got along, and once they got on to the topic of music the rest of the world just ceased to exits, so mostly Claire left them to it. But now she felt the need to take a much closer look at her brother and his flat mate. Like, for instance, the fact that they liked to share a bowl of cereal in the morning. She'd thought it was just to save on the washing up but it suddenly seemed like a very 'couply' thing to do.

Jonatton Yeah? was a bit of a prat, but he was also more intelligent than most of the idiots Claire had to live and work with, and when she'd been beside herself over Dan jumping out the window Jonathan had been there, offering a shoulder for her to cry on. He'd visited them regularly, bringing meals and bags of grapes, and had even helped Claire find some other avenues for her documentary so she didn't have to rely on Nathan any more. He'd been genuinely decent and had been genuinely surprised when she'd set him straight about Dan.

When they'd met for coffee and Jonatton asked her how Jones was doing, whether he was coping with his boyfriend being "out of action", as he'd put it, Claire had actually laughed. But Jonathan had been in earnest and had seemed embarrassed when she'd corrected him. And that had got Claire thinking.

_"__But, I thought it was common knowledge," Jonatton'd whispered when Claire had laughed into her coffee._

_"__Dan and Jones?" she's sniggered. "Are you serious? Dan's not even gay, he used to have a girlfriend before she realised he was a lazy git and kicked him out, and I've never seen Jones with _anyone, _let alone a guy."_

_"__Well," Jonatton raised his eyebrows at her. "People change. And did you ever wonder whether no one ever sees Jones going with people because he's already _with_ Dan?"_

_His logic had made Claire feel a bit hysterical, which was silly. She didn't care if Dan was gay, not really, except that it would have been nice to have been told. But Dan and Jones? A couple? It seemed ridiculous._

_"__They barely even hang out."_

_"__Really? Are you sure? I rarely see one without the other. Always standing so close. Practically holding hands... And Dan and I work together so I see him a lot. With Jones."_

_That made Claire blink and she desperately began thinking back to just how much time Dan and Jones really did spend together._

_"__Oh my god!"_

_"__I'm just saying that you might want to see how Jones is coping with it and all," Jonatton had told her softly, holding her hand and rubbing his thumb across her knuckles. She never would have picked him as a sensitive and caring guy but she had to hand it to him, he had been there for them over the last two weeks and he probably knew Dan as well as anyone._

_"__It must be hard on him, especially if, well, I mean even you didn't know they were a couple. If Dan is having all these troubles, and Jones is left to pick up the pieces..."_

_Claire nodded._

_"__It makes sense, now that you say it."_

_It was Jonatton's turn to nod and he gestured to the waitress for more coffee as Claire thought more and more about the weird relationship between her brother and his housemate. _

_"__Because there is that bedroom that they supposedly share. They don't spend much time in it but... And when they're drunk they tend to..."_

_"__Tend to what, Claire?"_

_"__They..." Claire blushed. How had she missed it? "Jones tends to crawl into Dan's lap and they, they just sort of hold each other. And... Oh my god..."_

_"__What?"_

_"__About a month ago, Jones had a hickey! How did I forget that? And when I commented on it, well, Dan looked... pleased."_

_Jonatton had been so understanding. He'd hugged her when they'd parted had told her to text him, call him, whatever she needed. _

_"__Having a family member 'come out' is hard, even for progressive, young thing like yourself, and if Dan's still in denial or anything, yeah? All I'm saying is, call me if you need to talk to anyone. I have to split, work and all that, but I'm here for you, Claire. Call me if you need to talk about anything. Yeah?"_

As she'd walked back to the House of Jones she still hadn't really believed it because surely she would have known if her brother were gay, she was an astute and intelligent sister and she would have noticed if her big brother fancied men. Wouldn't she? She'd only been in London for a few months but surely she would have seen the signs.

And that was how she wound up sneaking into her own home, tip toeing so as not to be heard even though a record was playing in the sitting room. When she'd left she'd told them that she would be gone all day so they had no reason to expect her back, which meant that she should have a good chance at catching them unaware, as long as she was quiet.

It did feel a little wrong, spying on Dan when his sexuality was his own business, but she only wanted to find out for herself, so that she could be more supportive, and let Dan know that she didn't mind, that he didn't need to sneak around and hide who he was. It wasn't like she was going to film it and publish it. She wasn't Nathan, she had morals.

Then again, she thought as she snuck down the hallway toward the second bedroom, maybe she _should_ take a photo (if she found them up to something). Dan could be a moody, lazy, selfish dick and sometimes a little blackmail was the only thing that worked on him. If there was anything worth photographing that was. Which there probably wasn't. Jones was a weird, overly tactile young man and Dan was secretly very cuddly and liked the fact that Jones bought him food and never remembered to ask for rent. They were unlikely friends but surely no more than that.

The sudden moan that rippled through the quiet house caused Claire to stop and rethink her position. It was a low, guttural sound that just screamed sex. And it could have come from either Dan or Jones. The only way to find out was to take a look and, even though the sensible part of her brain was telling her (in their mother's no-nonsense voice) to just walk away because she didn't really need to see, a larger part of her brain insisted on getting a good look at who had moaned like that and why.

She took two more steps, trying to keep her breathing steady as the intensity and frequency of the moans increased, and carefully peeked through the doorway, phone at the ready. But even with the warning she'd had from Jonatton that morning, and the very obvious noises, Claire was not prepared.

Dan was on his back on the double bed, naked and spread out, his left leg at an awkward angle in it's plaster cast. And the moans were most definitely coming from him. Although Jones, from his position between Dan's thighs, was making his own share of happy, snuffly noises too. Dan was panting now, and babbling, and Claire found she couldn't move, and couldn't look away.

"Oh, Christ, Jones! Oh! Oh- I love... I love you. Oh, Christ! Gah!" Dan cried out as his attempt at hiding his face under his arm caused him to smack himself in the forehead with his plastered wrist.

Jones released Dan's cock with a slurp and began to mouth at his lover's balls, a sneaky laugh making Dan moan harder as it vibrated through him.

"You great idiot. I never get tired of you saying that, by the way. That you love me," he murmured before licking his way back up Dan's dick to the swollen head. " 'Specially when you're all desperate and beggin' for it."

"But not in front of other people?" Dan whimpered and the question jolted Claire enough that she finally thought to bring her phone up to her face and take a picture.

"Maybe we should," Jones said dreamily, still lapping lazily at Dan's dick as the larger man squirmed beneath him helplessly. "It's not such a big deal anymore. New century and all that. And I'm older. Five years ago they would've beat me to a pulp for bein' a fag-"

"They would've sent me to prison," Dan gasped. Jones laughed again, low in his throat.

"Nah. It was legal. Possibly a bit creepy, but definitely legal. But sure, we'll do it. You can declare your love. We'll be the big, bisexual saps and hold hands in public and all."

"Oh, God!" Dan cried and Claire couldn't tell whether it was because of what Jones had said or because the DJ had lowered his mouth back over Dan's painfully hard erection.

She snapped another photo and backed away from the door as carefully as she could. This was probably proof then. Dan and Jones were having sex. Dan and Jones were in a relationship. And in love. Claire grimaced and tried not to trip over the piles of cable and synth pedals by the front door.

Of all the revelations she'd just witnessed that was probably the strangest, and the least expected. Dan was a cynical prick, had been for almost thirty years, Claire knew this in her heart and soul. Dan Ashcroft didn't make himself vulnerable and confess his love. It didn't make sense. And she felt a little sick.

The cold air outside helped her feel a little less like she was going to vomit and she took in a few big gulps before fishing around in her handbag for a smoke. She needed to sort all of this out and figure out how to approach them both. She didn't want them hiding their relationship from her, she knew that. It was Jones' house for a start and they should be allowed to act like a couple if they wanted to, and it had sounded like Dan certainly wanted to.

But one thing Claire knew about herself was that she wasn't good at sorting things out on her own. She was a talker. She needed to talk her way through any issue to get it in order in her head and plan what she would do. But now that she and Barley were no longer on speaking terms she didn't have many people in London who she could really talk to. She couldn't call their parents, Dan needed to come out to them himself, so that really only left one person.

She typed in the contact name and waited anxiously for it to ring through.

"Hey, Jonatton?" she sighed when he picked up. "Turns out you were right. Want to meet me somewhere for dinner?"

And at the other end of the phone line Jonatton Yeah? grinned. The story had already gone to press but he was sure he could squeeze in whatever Claire unwittingly handed him.


	3. Chapter 3

Claire stared at the front cover of the latest edition of SugaRape! Magazine and began to understand why Dan had jumped out of that window. Jumping out of a window seemed like a perfectly reasonable alternative to her life right now, and things were about to get worse.

SugaRape had done some messed up things in it's time, most of them since it had changed from SugarApe to SugaRape, but this seemed the most perverse. Even the worst tabloids weren't quite this whorish in their attention seeking and sensationalizing, surely, and she hated that on some level, this was actually her fault.

She looked down again at the glossy magazine in her hands and immediately wanted to vomit.

**SUGARAPE! **THIS ISSUE: _DRINK, DRUGS, SUICIDE AND UNDERAGE SEX!:_ EX-SUGARAPE WRITER REVEALED TO BE IN ILLICIT RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUNGER MAN

DAN _'THE PREACHER MAN'_ ASHCROFT'S DARK SECRET! : LIKE A PROPER PREACHER ASHCROFT LIKES THE BOYS AND LIKES THEM YOUNG!

**EXCLUSIVE PICTURES AS THE PREACH MAKES HIS CHOIR BOY SING!**

SOURCES CLOSE TO THE COUPLE REVEAL DAN'S DOMINEERING WAYS AND WHY THE RELATIONSHIP WAS KEPT A SECRET...

_PLUS: THE TRUTH BEHIND ASHCROFT'S LOVER, HOW OLD WAS HE REALLY WHEN ASHCROFT SEDUCED HIM? _

The headlines were plastered garishly over a grainy picture of Dan and Jones kissing and obviously unaware that they were being watched. It wasn't one of her photos but one of the headers promised more photos inside and she didn't doubt that the one's she'd shown Jonatton yesterday would be in there. Just like she didn't doubt that the "source" they were referring to was her.

As soon as Dan saw this he was going to kill her, but Claire knew that she had to be the one to show him. Dan'd die of shame if he had to find out about this from anyone else but this was not going to be fun for either of them. And then there was Jones...

Claire hurried down the street. The magazine had only been printed that morning and she'd happened to be passing the office when the delivery truck arrived. Jonatton Yeah? had grinned at her as he handed her a free copy and she'd actually smiled back and walked on before she looked down and realised what was on the cover. Jonatton had stitched them all up and then grinned at her as he presented her with her own order of execution. She'd always known he was a prick. But that didn't change the fact that she had been the one to give him most of the information he needed.

She tried to walk faster without actually running but ended up doing a weird hop-step as she turned the corner. She really had to get home.

The House of Jones was quiet, which meant that Jones was probably asleep for once, but she slammed the door when she entered anyway. This couldn't wait and by the end of the day everyone they knew would have seen this.

"Dan!" she yelled as she shrugged off her bag and stormed into the sitting room. "Dan?"

"Wha?" Dan snuffled, jolting awake on the couch. Jones, face down on the other sofa, didn't move and Claire groaned in frustration because it didn't seem fair that Jonatton couldn't have just walked in on the two men when they were like this. This was their most natural state, surely? passed out on separate couches rather than locked in some sort of passionate embrace. Why couldn't they have been more careful?

Claire stopped. She'd been about to throw the magazine at Dan, so full of her anger at the situation that she would have berated her brother and housemate for simply being a couple. Being gay wasn't a crime. Being in a relationship and choosing not to tell people wasn't a crime either, and if it was a little odd, well, they were both very private and rather odd men. None of this was really their fault and she couldn't be angry at them for it, not when they would probably be angry at her, and with good reason. No, Claire realised, she needed to be mature and calm and take her share of the blame for this debacle, even if it was hard. It was the only way.

She chewed on her lip and passed the magazine carefully to Dan, who sat up blearily, rubbing at his injured arm and giving his usual, smoker's morning cough. He started to ask her what her problem was but stopped when he saw the SugaRape cover. His eyes, which she had always teased him about for being small and suspicious, went wide, and his mouth opened slowly. He looked like a film done using a slow-motion camera, like those adverts when the protagonist just can't believe that there's a way to get a much better deal on their car insurance. It was almost funny, except it wasn't.

She'd expected him to yell and rage, or sulk and swear, and so the cracked whimper he let out instead caught her off guard, and was much more frightening. And it was that noise which woke Jones.

"Whazzit?" he asked blearily, jolting up off the couch with a start, his bed-hair halo framing his pale face a bit too perfectly for someone who'd been fast asleep only seconds ago. "Dan, what's the matter?"

Dan, whose eyes were still roving back and forth over the magazine cover, just whimpered again and Jones was on his feet in an instant, stumbling over to sit beside Dan and brush his hair out of his eyes with such tenderness that Claire felt like kicking herself. The affection was obvious when she actually looked, but she obviously hadn't been the only person to not see it, if Jonatton Yeah? had thought that revealing it would create this much scandal.

"I..." Dan panted. "I need my pills."

Jones nodded and headed silently down to the bathroom, returning with a glass of water and a box of prescription tablets. He watched closely as Dan took his meds before returning them to their place and it was several minutes before they were all in the room with nothing better to do than see what damage Jonatton and the SugaRape team had tried to wreak on Dan's reputation. Jones hadn't even seen the cover yet and no body had said word but Dan's face had settled into a deep scowl that was directed straight at Claire.

Claire stared straight back, even when Dan threw the magazine onto the coffee table with a loud smack and Jones looked at them both in confusion.

"Dan? What's up? Why are you- Oh, holy shit!"

Jones had spotted the mag. He scooped it up and jumped to his feet in one swift movement and began to pace the small lounge room as he read it, mumbling to himself.

"Likes them young? _Likes them young?_ Choir boy! Dan have you seen this?!"

Dan looked up but instead of answering simply opened his arms and let Jones climb into his lap. Claire looked down at the ground but Dan snorted in her direction.

"No point trying to be subtle now, I suppose. And don't try to pretend you didn't have some hand in this, Claire."

His voice was a whip. It was their dad's voice and Dan didn't use it often but it was a voice that Claire found very difficult to argue with.

"But Dan," Jones whispered, his voice going high in his panic. "Have you seen the article. There's pictures! Of us kissing and in bed, and... What are we gonna... I can't!"

He struggled out of Dan's arms, which wasn't hard given the other man's weakened condition, and sprinted for the kitchen. Claire heard his fill the kettle at the sink and begin to bang coffee tins and mugs around, and sighed. She'd expected Dan to be the one panicking and angry but she'd half thought Jones would shrug it off, because surely he had nothing to lose?

She glanced back at Dan, who looked much too tired for a man still one month shy of his thirtieth birthday.

"I can understand why Jonatton would do this," he said in a low rumble. "He's a vindictive dick, and the other idiots at that magazine probably just think it's funny. But you, Claire," he sighed, picking up the magazine from where it had fallen when Jones stormed out and opening it to one of the eight pages dedicated to his public humiliation and slander. "What could you possibly gain from this? What could you possibly gain by hurting Jones?"

Claire frowned at his insinuation that she'd been in any way malicious. Yeah, she'd taken some photos, but that'd been to have a go at Dan, not Jones. Jones was barely on her radar at all, most of the time. He was just the idiot who kept her awake all night with his horrific noise and Dan treating him like some sort of precious flower - even if they were carrying on some sort of affair - was just strange and out of character.

"I don't see why he's this upset. He's got a fit body and surely all publicity is good publicity in his business."

"Can you hear yourself? Those photos were taken and published without his consent. And did you ever stop to think that Jones prefered to keep his and my relationship private because it was better publicity to appear available and fuckable to the nightclub hordes? It's not that uncommon in the music industry."

"Oh, fine," Claire rolled her eyes. "But still-"

"They published his address, age and full name, Claire," Dan told her through gritted teeth. "Try to imagine how that would feel. You're supposed to be the queen of empathy, so why isn't your big, fat, heart bleeding for Jones, hmm?"

He tried to shift his weight on the couch and Claire saw him wince when he knocked his leg against the coffee table. She could see what he was trying to say but she still thought Jones was overreacting. It was Dan who was being targeted. And she hated being told what to think and feel.

"Fuck, it hurts," Dan muttered through clenched teeth but Claire folded her arms and refused to feel sympathy.

If Dan had just been upset or embarrassed like he was supposed to be she would have been ready with apologies and comforting words but of course Dan had to be self-righteous dick instead.

"Why don't you just pop another pain pill," she sniped, and wanted to thump Dan when he rolled his eyes at her.

"I'm not on anything stronger than paracetamol at the moment," he told her and smirked at her look of surprise.

"Then what-"

"Anti-depressants," he growled and suddenly Claire did feel bad.

"Oh."

Dan was good at hiding his problems. He'd push other people away and act like he didn't care about anything or anyone and she'd expected him to have a meltdown when he saw the SugaRape article in a melodramatic and self-indulgent way. She wasn't used to Dan being mature or thinking about other people. It actually made a nice change, even if he was still infuriating.

He snorted at her, and managed to shift himself into a more comfortable position.

"Yeah," he said with a snigger that still made her want to smack him up the side of the head. "Oh."


	4. Chapter 4

Dan had stopped Claire when she'd tried to go into the kitchen to talk some sense into Jones, and he'd been right, Jones needed caffeine in his system in order to properly absorb information. And he was much calmer now that he was sitting wedged up against Dan on the couch with his second mug of coffee cradled in his pale hands.

"Well," Dan sighed gruffly. "I suppose it's out now. At least we don't have to try and figure out a way to, you know, come out." Jones huffed what might have been a laugh through his nose but his expression didn't change. "They could have been less brutal about it, though, I suppose."

"They could have been a bit more fucking _accurate_ about it, though," Jones countered, slurping his coffee noisily. "Fucking wankers! Is this your leaving present then? You resign and they decide to smear us both in their shit rag?"

"But you are- I mean I saw-" Claire began, but swallowed what she'd been about to say when Jones looked up at her with angry fire in his blue eyes.

"These photos yours then?" he spat. "I did wonder. Some houseguest you are."

Claire was going to defend herself but couldn't. Jones had given her a place to stay, had helped clear most of Dan's junk out of the bedroom so she could use it, had been relaxed about the rent and never complained when she yelled at him or Dan, or even when she used all the hot water. He'd been cheerful and downright accommodating and when Dan had been hurt he'd been the one to organise things and call their parents to let them know what had happened. While she'd been sitting uselessly by Dan's bed watching the idiots who he hated coming to visit and laugh, Jones had been chatting with doctors and the hospital psychologist and getting Dan discharged rather then kept on suicide watch. And in return she'd unwittingly helped Jonatton Yeah? ruin Dan's life.

"They're not all my photos," she mumbled, trying not to sound sulky. "And the ones that are Jonatton must've stolen from my phone when I went to the loo."

"You were out with Jonatton Yeah?" Dan's voice was heavy with scorn and Claire nodded without looking up. This was very much like being a kid again and being told off by her parents for making up stories at school.

"I thought he was trying to help. He asked how Jones was doing, as your boyfriend, and I laughed and told him that Jones wasn't anyone's boyfriend and that you weren't gay but then... I got to thinking about it, and..."

"You snuck in and took photos of us? And showed them to Yeah? You're as bad as Barley," Dan sneered.

"I am not!"

"No, you're worse!" Dan bit back. He opened the hated magazine again and laid it out on the table so that she had no choice but to see the photo's she'd taken spread out in front of her. "At least Nathan would have used these to make a profit. You sold us out for free!"

She didn't have a response for that and the three of them looked down at the pictures like witnesses to a robbery gone wrong who just couldn't stop staring.

Even though their, well, their... 'bits', Claire's brain provided, were not in shot, it was obvious at a glance that the two men in the photos were naked and engaged in some rather carnal acts, and that the two men were Dan and Jones. It'd only been a blowjob but somehow the way the photos had been arranged made it seem like something very intimate, or maybe that was just because it had been something intimate. Claire didn't really want to dwell on it.

Jones snorted and put his mug down pointedly over a picture of his face before wriggling his shoulders against Dan until they were very much in each other's space.

"I hate this. See, it's alright when I call myself gay," Jones frowned, his voice speeding up as his frustration increased. "Cos I know what I mean. I can say I'm a bit gay, or queer or poofy. And I know what I mean. It's different when they write it like that. Like it's an insult. Makes my blood boil."

"But you are-" Claire started to ask but Dan gave her another warning look.

"Bisexual," Jones replied. "Always have been. Always known it. Girls are hot, guys are hot, people who can't be contained by gender binaries are hot."

"Well, in that case, what I think you're trying to say is that you're pansexual-"

"I'll pick my own labels, thanks," Jones shot back and Claire's mouth shut with a click of her teeth at his bluntness. Jones wasn't usually so blunt, or so talkative, then again, he wasn't usually so angry either, and Claire shifted back to lean against the wall, trying to show that she was willing to give him some space.

Jones nodded to her, like he understood the body language, and took a deep breath before continuing.

"I got nothing against people using whatever label makes them comfortable, but I'm bisexual. It's what I am. Getting called gay is... annoying."

Dan nodded and leaned in to place a kiss against Jones' temple. It was unlike anything Claire had seen her brother do before and he gave her a look that was tired and guarded when he realised she was looking.

"And this ain't even the worst of our problems," Jones grouched, slipping his hand onto Dan's leg and gently massaging the muscle above the plaster.

"It's not?" Claire ventured when Dan didn't speak and Jones didn't offer anything further.

Jones grabbed up his coffee mug, draining the dregs slamming it back down before looking at her. His eyes were still angry but incredulous too, as if he couldn't understand why he needed to explain, or how the sister of his Dan Ashcroft could be so thick.

"They've made Dan look like a kiddy fiddler, Claire. Like a pedo. They've published my personal details and made me look like a little abused dolly."

Claire tried to look understanding but the more she looked through the article, the more questions she had herself.

"Well, it is a little unorthodox, don't you think?" she asked in a calm and sensible voice but Jones just shook his head vehemently, letting his hair flick about his face like an angry child.

"It's not, it's fine, it works! You don't get it, Claire. This ain't just outing someone against their will. This is slander. This is serious... And it's gonna ruin everything."


	5. Chapter 5

**This chapter contains a recount of illegal and unsavoury things. So this is a warning for that. Sorry.**

* * *

><p><em>Jones was seventeen when his mum died. He didn't cry, they hadn't been close, but it was still a shock. His dad had died years back - hit and run by a drunk driver - and in the wake of that, his mum had lost it. She'd been like some sort of junkie caricature, littering the house with needles and bringing people home to do things for easy cash that had given the young Jones nightmares. <em>

_Jones had opted to leave when he was sixteen after discovering two ragged crack heads shooting up on his bed, where they'd obviously just had sex, but he hadn't had anywhere to go. He'd bunked on friends' couches and floors and slept in doorways and tube stations and learnt how to fight and how to avoid a fight. It had been like a nightmare but he didn't get to wake up in the morning to sunshine and breakfast. _

_The nightmare just kept going, like one of those days where you could feel the rain building and the air felt like sandpaper but it never actually happened - you were just stuck with the dry need for rain, and muted sounds, like a flute stuffed with cotton wool._

_What ended it was finding out through the bloke at the newsagent that his mum had overdosed. _

_He'd had to identify the body and no one had thought to ask him if he was ok, or if he was coping with all this. He'd been sat down with a social worker and a solicitor to explain that the house was his but so was the debt that come with it. His mum'd still had a job at the pub when she'd died and had, somehow, maintained her life insurance and there was enough of that to pay off the mortgage but not much left after. _

_He'd been informed that since he was seventeen he could live there, didn't need to go into state care, was basically an adult as far as anyone cared. The social worker had asked him if he wanted her to ring a friend to take him for the night but Jones couldn't think of any friend close enough so said no. He got the keys to the house from the duty sergeant at the police station and walked home, wondering if the nightmare might have been better after all._

_He'd managed to stay in the house for two whole hours. He'd thrown the needles and lighters and spoons and pipes into a bin bag but couldn't open the fridge without gagging and couldn't go into either of the bedrooms without starting to hyperventilate. He tried to make up the couch to sleep on but accidentally discovered a collection of sex toys under a pillow that looked like they hadn't been properly sanitized - ever - and promptly burst into tears._

_He'd run out into the street, not caring that it was nearly midnight and that it probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, and sat on the step, clutching his head and sobbing. _

_He woke up several hours later, just as the weak sunlight was peaking over rooftops and chasing away the shadows, with a throat like a mucous slip'n'slide from all the crying and a thick coat on his shoulders. _

_"__I checked the house."_

_Jones jumped at the sound of someone speaking so close beside him and the man doing the talking jumped too. He had a soft voice and seemed a bit unsure of himself. Jones liked it. He sounded like rainy days and mist and warm mugs of tea and when he looked up he saw a bloke not much older than himself, though with a beard that made him look older and shoulders so broad that people had probably mistaken him for thirty even when he was fifteen. _

_The guy smiled, awkward and brief, and Jones tried to smile back, but it didn't work, so the bloke kept talking._

_"__I checked your house," he repeated. "I thought there must have been a dead body in there or something cos why else would a kid be sitting out on a stoop at night, bawling like a babe. But there's no one in there. Looks like shit. Smells like a coffin, but..."_

_"__Me mum died in there this morning, well, yesterday morning now, I suppose," Jones whispered into the silence that had grown up around them. "I thought I'd be ok to sleep there. Better than the street, right? But apparently not."_

_"__Shit... Sorry."_

_Jones did smile then. It was the most sincere remark he'd heard in a while. But the smile made him want to cry again, and he stared into the sun to try and scare the tears away._

_"__Thanks," he whispered, and felt the man nod. _

_"__Dan, by the way. That's my name, I mean. Dan Ashcroft. Just because, introductions and all that. I don't want to seem like a pedophile, picking up some poor, lost kid. Shit."_

_Jones nodded and felt the smile creeping back. As if anyone could suspect this guy of anything underhanded. _

_"__Jones," he said, holding out his hand for Dan to shake._

_"__Just Jones? Nothing to go with that?"_

_Jones shook his head. _

_"__My first name's Tom. M'mum said I may as well be Tom, Dick or Harry for all she cared. My last name's Pearce, same as her, but I don't want her name no more. My middle name's Jones, cos that was me dad's mum's family name, and he liked it. So I wanna just be Jones from now. That ok?"_

_The guy, Dan, smiled and nodded, less awkwardly this time and pressed his shoulder against Jones' in a comforting sort of way. _

_"__Not up to me, but I'll call you whatever you want me to call you. Your name's what makes you feel like you. Jones suits you. Nice to meet you, Jones."_

_They sat in silence for a while longer, watching as the sun began to take over more of the street, banishing the shadows to the alleys and corners for another day, until Dan stood and stretched his arms and neck, groaning like an old man. Jones figured he probably had some place to be and started to take off the jacket but Dan stopped him._

_"__Leave that on. You're all bones and skin, you'll freeze or fall apart or blow away if you don't have something solid holding you together."_

_"__But I thought-"_

_"__Mmm, well. Other things can wait. My job's shit anyway. Right now we both need coffee. Then we need to stop at the minimart down there and get disinfectant and sponges and bin bags and other cleaning junk. And gloves. We're definitely going to need gloves."_

_Jones stood up and looked at the man who seemed to have swooped down from grunge-rock heaven to be his personal guardian angel and tried to figure out why anyone would want to help him._

_"__But, why?" he asked when he couldn't find the answer written on Dan's face._

_"__Because," Dan told him, stuffing his hands in his pockets and beginning to walk swiftly toward the cafe at the end of the street. "I am a master procrastinator and need something big to distract me from the fact that my girlfriend has dumped all my worldly possessions on the steps of my work. My work which I hate but never leave. Happy?"_

_"__No," Jones said simply, keeping up with Dan's long strides as best he could. "Not really."_

_"__Good," Dan replied. "If you were happy right now you'd be an idiot. Happiness is overrated. But coffee is not. So we'll start with that."_

_Dan hadn't been kidding about the coffee, Jones had never tasted anything so genius in his life and they'd shared a plate of eggs and beans and Dan had actually listened to him, just sat there and listened to a seventeen-year-old whine about how he didn't know what to do with himself and was scared that he was going to die alone cos he had no money and didn't know how to cook._

_"__Tell you what," Dan said slowly, when Jones had eventually talked himself to silence. "How about, when we've got that place clean, I rent one of the rooms off you? I need a place to stay and you need a bit of cash." He spoke carefully, with a lot of pauses, like he wasn't sure that the thoughts in his head were going to sound the way he wanted them to, which Jones could understand all too well. "I'm not trying anything on, I promise. I need to find somewhere or I'll be on the streets as well, and I don't think I want to leave you in there on your own."_

_Jones felt himself nodding, even before he'd properly processed what Dan had said. Despite the fact that he mumbled and seemed hesitant and unsure about everything he said, there was something about Dan that made Jones want to agree and be his friend. He wondered if it was a trick that worked on everyone or whether he was just really simple but then a waitress came and refilled their coffee cups free of charge and blushed when Dan grunted a barely audible 'thank you' so Jones decided that Dan Ashcroft just had a gift._

_"__Why would you be so nice to me though?" Jones blurted out the question that had been hanging over him for the last hour. "You don't even know me."_

_Dan huffed and ran his fingers though his scruffy hair, which looked in need of both a wash and a trim._

_"__I know that you are Jones," he began looking down at his coffee as he spoke as if giving eye contact just wasn't something he was physically capable of. "I know your mum died yesterday and that your dad died when you were younger and that you are only seventeen. You've been living rough, you've had your nose broken at least once, and you're scared. And," here he did look up, and Jones tried to look worthy of his gaze. "And you make interesting pictures when you talk. That is, the images you create with your words. I like it."_

_"__I do? I mean, I did? I mean, you do?"_

_"__Yeah. You said you liked this cafe because it sounds like a slow Wednesday afternoon even though it's a Friday morning. And that sun through a greasy window looks the way a toddler playing a xylophone sounds. I like that."_

_"__Wow," Jones whispered, gulping his coffee to hide the furious blush that had just hit his cheeks. "You were actually listening."_

_Dan gave a low, rumbling chuckle and rubbed his hand over his stubbly cheek. It made a delicious sound and for once Jones didn't feel embarrassed at being distracted by the noise._

_"__I'll warn you now, though," Dan told him, doing that funny half-smile again like he understood exactly what Jones was thinking. "I can be a right moody bastard to live with. Reclusive, rude, and I hate doing dishes."_

_"__That's alright," Jones replied, almost smiling himself. "I don't know what I'm like to live with really. But... you don't just want to fuck me or fuck me over do you? Cos I'm rubbish at telling the decent people from the crooks most of the time and, well..."_

_"__No!" Dan leant back in his chair and Jones felt the blush creeping further up his face but Dan rushed on and Jones noticed that he was going a little red too. "I am not trying to fuck you over, Jones. Truth is, if my mum found out that I had seen a young person in need and just walked on by, she'd belt me. She's big on the whole 'Love thy neighbour' bullshit. But I'm not trying to fuck you over. And I'm not trying to fuck you. That is... I'm not... men... well, I am... you know..."_

_Dan sighed and closed his eyes for a count of five. Jones tried not to fidget while he did it but it was hard to keep still. He'd never met someone who wasn't straight before, as far as he knew, and that was a bit exciting. And he now felt pretty sure that Dan wouldn't just steal what little he had, beat him and leave him for dead. Which was a pretty good start. Dan opened his eyes and tried again._

_"__I am attracted to men but you, Jones, are seventeen, and in need of a shower, and food. And you're seventeen."_

_The smile was back and Jones couldn't stop it this time. Dan smiled too, embarrassed and still blushing behind his facial hair as he soldiered on with his reassurances. _

_"__I am not going to try anything on with a seventeen-year-old kid who's just lost his mum, and I will beat the shit out of anyone who tries to. D'you understand? Besides, I really do need somewhere to stay. If my stuff stays out on the street in front of SugarApe much longer it'll start disappearing and I'll have to endure the idiots I work with wearing it 'ironically'. I'm actually being selfish in offering to help you."_

_Jones actually laughed and Dan seemed satisfied but then Jones realised where he'd seen Dan's name before._

_"__SugarApe? The magazine?" he asked excitedly, wriggling in his chair when Dan nodded. "I knew your name was familiar. You write the music reviews and band interviews and stuff, don't you?"_

_"__That I do," Dan said, smiling into his coffee cup. "You like music, Jones?"_

_"__Are you kidding? I _love_ music!"_


	6. Chapter 6

Dan looked around the colourful little house that had been his home for the last six years, as he thought back to that first day, that first meeting - the day he'd moved in to the House of Jones. He'd encouraged the kid to go nuts with his decorating and make the place his own so that he could live there without the ghosts of his mother's indiscretions plaguing him. It had sort of worked but even when Jones was jumping around to music or painting mad portraits, filled to his eyebrows with caffeine and sugar, there was always a shadow. He'd even tried to kiss the fear away, which had worked quite well, and if Jones wasn't keen on people knowing he was in a relationship, well, Dan wasn't that good at public displays of affection anyway, and was willing to do just about anything to see Jones' smile. It had become his mission. He'd never wanted anything so much in his life as to make Jones happy. And what Jones wanted in life was to be a DJ.

He'd started writing features for SugarApe to get enough money together to buy Jones a basic DJ set up, which had then been altered and 'improved' by Jones until he had a unique set of decks and a unique sound to match. They'd found out quite quickly that no one was _that_ keen on hiring an unknown eighteen-year-old boy with no references, but also discovered that a twenty-two year old with a glowing review from Dan Ashcroft, well that man could find himself a resident DJ at a hot underground club and a day job at one of the coolest styling salons in Shoreditch. So that was what they had done, and it'd been easy.

And the smile that Dan had been working toward was there. And it was intoxicating and addictive and Dan had realised that he wouldn't be able to live without Jones. He'd fallen in love.

And life had been good. For years. The House of Jones was Dan's haven from a life he wasn't entirely satisfied with and Jones' safe place when being a grown-up got too hard. But they'd made things work. They'd laughed and lived a messy, fun, exciting life together in a house decorated by a teenage boy with brain made from colour and noise. They'd tried, and failed, to learn to cook together. They'd had messy, funny, noisy sex - a lot of sex - and learned what they liked and didn't like, and what they really, _really_ liked. They'd argued over whether getting a cat was a genius or bloody stupid thing to do and they'd become a couple inside those brightly decorated walls.

But then, things had gotten... complicated.

Dan's shit job had gotten... more shit.

The Black Dog had reared its ugly head again.

As he always knew it would.

Every time it happened it was like a switch was flicked in his head - no matter how well he thought he was doing - it would happen, and in a matter of weeks he'd be a mess and barely able to function. Washing, eating, communicating, all seemed unimportant and everything seemed to go wrong, no matter what he was trying to achieve. Cat's died, his self-worth died, the debt collectors found him, the idiots won. Nothing turned out right when _It_ struck.

Jones had tried to talk, tried to make things better, but he was still just a kid and Dan had pushed him away because it seemed like the only thing to do at the time. Jones hadn't stopped trying to find ways to cheer Dan up but this time it was Jones searching for a smile and Dan who couldn't seem to make it come.

He'd thought that humiliating himself in front of his sister and Nathan Barley, on film, had been rock bottom. Then he'd jumped out of a window and actually hit rock (well, concrete) and he'd thought that was as bad as it could get.

He'd thought that Jones didn't want to visit him in the hospital and had actually contemplated ending things then, but when everyone else finally left Jones had been there and had sat with him while the doctor talked about physiotherapy and non-addictive pain killers and chronic depression and the dangers of self-medicating with alcohol and anti-depressant medication and all the other things that made Dan want to run and hide and never show his face in public again. And that had been bad, but the way Jones had smiled at him when he'd agreed to try the anti-depressants, sad and wavering, just like the day they'd met, had made Dan think that maybe things were going to get better.

He should have known better than to think the universe would let him catch a break. He didn't deserve one. The one decent thing he'd done in his life, helping a kid whose _real_ problems had made even his dormant heart bleed a bit, had turned out to be selfish, and he was being exposed as the idiot he was. It wouldn't have been so bad if he'd gone through it without Jones being exposed to ridicule as well, but it was just like him to drag the person he loved most down with him.

And now, when he really didn't deserve it, Jones was sitting with him, so close that his shoulder blade dug into Dan's rib, like always, massaging Dan's injured leg the way the physio had taught him to, when he should have been kicking Dan - and Claire - out of his house and out of his life.

"Well what are we going to do?" Claire blurted into the silence, and Dan blinked up at her, wondering why she was still here.

She'd sunk down against the wall, sitting like a kid with her legs tucked up to her chest and her chin on her knee but Dan couldn't stand to look at her.

"You should be packing your stuff for a start," he mumbled, his frown deepening when she had the gall to look hurt.

"You can't kick me out, it's not your house!"

"No, it's not," Dan countered, his voice rising. "It's Jones's house. And do you really think he's going to want you here after what you've done? Do you?"

Claire looked so venomous he thought for a second she was going to poke her tongue out at him like she'd done when they were kids and she was losing another argument, but she sneered at him instead and when she spoke again it was with infuriating snideness.

"Why don't you let Jones speak for himself, Dan? I'll start believing what they've written about you being controlling and manipulative if you're not careful." She paused for breath but Dan couldn't think of anything to say in response so she kept on, leaning forward onto her knees and squaring her shoulders and ready for a fight. "I've been here three months and I didn't even know Jones' real name 'til I read this, and even if the pictures _were_ from my phone - copied without my permission by the way - I didn't make up anything about Jones being under age! They found that out all on their own! What do you say to that?"

Dan was about to yell at her to shut up about what she didn't understand but Jones let out a strange, strangled little noise, halfway between a laugh and a sob and Dan cursed himself silently for being a dick and pulled the younger man more firmly against him instead.

"I ain't underage, Claire," Jones whispered, sounding tired and defeated. "They're shit mongers, you know they are. Do I look underage to you? Dan and I been living together for more than six years. You think I was twelve when he moved in?"

"Well, no, but," Claire stumbled, her anger deflating a little in the face of Jones' stillness. Jones was so rarely still, being a natural born fidget, that it was unnerving when he went like this, even for Dan who knew what it meant. "The article says your press age is twenty-seven but that you're really twenty-three."

Dan felt Jones shrug and gave Claire a warning look. She was doing a rubbish job at subtlety and he wanted to tell her to tread carefully but she was ignoring him in favour of Jones, who was hiding his eyes behind his jagged fringe.

" 'S four years," he said, in the same whispered tone. " 'S nothing. People do it all the time."

"Yeah, but usually they're trying to make themselves seem younger, not older. And it means that when Dan moved in here you were only, what? seventeen? Jones?"

"Still not illegal," Jones murmured and Dan felt his heart begin to claw its way out of his chest and up his throat because Claire didn't need to know this but he didn't know how to make her stop without just yelling.

And Jones hated yelling when there was no music beneath to balance it out. He said it stained the world a murky gray-brown and felt too hot, and Jones was uncomfortable enough right now without that.

"Not illegal, maybe," Claire barged on, oblivious of the distress she was causing, "but what were you even doing, living here on your own at that age? Are you a squatter? Should I even be paying rent to you or are you and Dan just running some sort of shady operation? Is it for drugs? Because mum warned me when I moved here-"

"Claire!" Dan yelled, hating that Jones jumped and shrank in on himself even more at the harsh tone.

"What?" she yelled back, but Dan couldn't be arsed with telling her what she'd done wrong.

Jones was too still, completely unmoving when he should have been all restless legs and drumming fingers and when he began to talk, it was barely audible and sounded dead, even to Dan's ears, which never picked up the subtleties that Jones' did. He wanted to cry but wasn't sure he even knew how to, and didn't want to distress Jones any more anyway. God knew the kid didn't deserve that.

"I don't do drugs. I do coffee, but that's not the same. And I do sleeping pills but the doctor gave me those, so that's not the same neither. I don't do drugs... An' this is _my_ house. My mum died when I was seventeen and I inherited it. Dan helped me clean it up and he needed a place to stay so I said he could. He wasn't trying it on or nothing, he was really decent. We didn't get together until after I turned eighteen and that was 'cos _I_ kissed _him_."

He stopped to take a shuddering breath in through his nose and Dan looked up at Claire, wanting to see if she understood what all this meant. She just looked curious and it made Dan unspeakably angry.

"He don't deserve to have his name smeared," Jones went on, his voice gaining a little strength now that he wasn't talking about himself. "Dan's been good to me. I love 'im. And you helped Jonatton Yeah? smear 'im. And you ain't said sorry yet."

He waited for Claire to apologise but Dan knew there was no sorry coming. His sister hated being told she was wrong, the same as him, and the more they showed her that she was wrong, the more she'd fight it, and then hate herself for it later. Niggling Claire was fun when he was in the mood, and Claire gave as good as she got, but sometimes Dan realised that he had to be the mature, older brother. It was a game he hated to play with Claire, because she despised it, but right now he knew they needed to get her out of the house before things got any further out of hand. And not just for Claire's sake - she would be hating herself for this for days, if not weeks - but because, in the last few days he'd actually felt able to love Jones properly again, and right now that needed to be his priority.

"Thanks for telling us about the magazine, Claire," he said, clearing his throat. "No, seriously. Otherwise we would have had to find out from one of those idiots out there and that would have been..."

"Pretty shit," Jones provided, and Dan nodded, seeing Claire's lips twitch upwards as he did.

"Pretty shit, yeah," he agreed. "But you do need to go now. Call Pingu or something. His thumbs are still messed up and he could probably use the help. Please?"

He tried to smile at her, to let her know that he didn't really hate her, but it came out as more of a grimace and she responded in kind. But she climbed to her feet and began straightening her shirt self-consciously and Dan finally felt his breathing relax knowing that she would soon be gone.

"I know I screwed up, Dan," she said, a little sullenly. "That's why I came to tell you myself, cos I knew I had to be the one to explain. And I didn't mean to give those photos to Jonatton. He played me and... well he's made me look like an idiot as well, that's all."

"Yeah," Dan replied, which he knew was probably not that helpful but was all he could manage.

Jones looked at his feet as Claire gathered a few things to take with her and didn't look up when she left and Dan didn't blame him. After she'd left, Dan hauled Jones firmly back into his lap, broken bones be damned, and held him and hoped that Jones understood what he was trying to tell him in the silence.


	7. Chapter 7

_Jones couldn't actually remember being this happy. He knew people said that, like 'this is the happiest I've ever been!' but he was serious. Things had never been this good. He'd done two gigs, just to fill in for another DJ, and had somehow scored himself a regular spot at a club that was so cool most people couldn't even pronounce its name properly. And he had his shifts at Stanley Knives, which meant heaps of exposure and steady money and... he was so excited he wanted to jump around the house like a little kid to his Ziggy Stardust album until he was too tired to even stand anymore! _

_Dan was leaning against the kitchen counter with that funny half-grin playing across his lips, flitting about, one minute there, the next minute gone 'cos he was trying to be serious and grown-up. He was clean shaven at the moment, trying to look more respectable, and Jones liked it because Dan's smile, when it appeared, had no where to hide. He didn't smile much, Dan Ashcroft, he was mostly known for being a super cool, moody bastard, but he smiled for Jones, and suddenly that seemed like an even more important reason to celebrate than the DJ gig. _

_Through all the shitty feelings and nightmares and weird sad days over the last year Dan had been there to remind Jones that he was brilliant and they just had to figure out how to show that to the world. He didn't always say it in words, sometimes it came in the form of a kiss to the top of his head that he then got all embarrassed about, or a fancy coffee from down the road, or a toy he'd found to decorate the decks. Quite often he just pointed out all the ways that every other disc jockey on the scene was utter shit. However he did it, Dan had a knack for making Jones smile._

_He also had a way of licking his lips that made Jones really want to kiss him, and right now he couldn't think of a good enough reason not to._

_He bounced over to Dan, who gave a throaty chuckle that made Jones shiver. He stood as close as he could, pressing himself against Dan's chest and stomach and wrapping his arms around the older mans' neck and Dan responded by putting his mug down on the counter and wrapping his own arms around Jones' waist._

_"__Are we slow dancing now?" Dan asked softly as the gentle strums of 'Rock'n'Roll Suicide' began to play and Jones bit his lip to stop what would either be a laugh or a sob, and embarrassing either way._

_"__I think I wanna kiss you, Dan," he replied and watched as Dan licked his lips again, like a temptation or an invitation. "No, scrap that, I _know_ I wanna kiss you, Dan."_

_"__I'm too old." _

_Dan shook his head but didn't move his arms away and Jones leaned against him more firmly, noting how Dan held him there, his big hands gripping firmly at Jones' pointy hip bones._

_"__You ain't that old, Dan," he whispered. "You always think you're old but you ain't. And eighteen and twenty-five ain't that bad. And I'm twenty-two now anyway, my write-up says so, so we're practically the same age an' all."_

_Dan laughed and moved his head a little closer but not enough to let their lips meet so Jones figured that bit was his job, since he'd started it. He leant in, tilting his chin until it felt like it was at the right angle and then pressed his lips against Dan's, letting his eyelids flutter closed as he did. _

_Bowie was singing to him that he wasn't alone and for the first time Jones actually believed it; standing in a kitchen that had used to feel like the sound of boots on gravel and now felt like bare feet in warm sand, with a man who smelt like cigarettes and coffee but tasted like tea and had a heart beat that seemed to match the rhythm that was forever playing in Jones' head. _

_Dan's lips weren't soft - he hadn't expected them to be, hadn't wanted them to be, because that wasn't Dan - Dan wasn't soft where people could see. But when Dan's tongue pushed against his lips, begging entry, then sliding into Jones' mouth to move against his own - that was soft - and so hot it made Jones moan and twist his fingers into Dan's hair so hard that Dan gasped and moved his hands from Jones' waist to his arse. _

_They'd stayed like that, kissing and grinding against one another, desperate for the feeling of need and want and almost-there pleasure to never stop. They kept going even after Dan's tea had gone cold and the record had played out. The skipping of the needle, the delicate scratch and spin of a record that was done but still turning, made Jones smile, and he'd laughed breathily into Dan's mouth, which only made the man pull him closer and kiss down his neck so that he could suck a deep, red, love bite on the pale skin there, which had made Jones laugh and gasp and giggle all the more._

_They hadn't done more than that. Dan had been adamant. He'd sent Jones to bed with a hot chocolate and a sleeping pill, like always. And the promise that there would be more kissing in the morning. And there had been._

It had been Jones' first kiss, and it had been more perfect than he reckoned any first kiss had the right to be. It had been _wonderful_, and he couldn't hear that song, or taste tea, without being transported back to that feeling of exciting, hard yet soft, need. No matter where he was or what he was supposed to be doing.

Which was sort of embarrassing actually, but still nice.

And now that feeling was there again. Dan was kissing his neck and rubbing his uninjured hand over Jones' chest like he wanted to calm the frantic beating of Jones' heart, and it felt so _good_, like he had his old Dan back. The Dan who was grumpy and a bit rude but also patient and caring and worried about doing the right thing and producing work he was proud of.

Knowing that it'd been the depression causing Dan's change in behaviour, that it was a illness that Dan couldn't control on his own and that there was no way Jones could have known what was happening, made it somehow less scary. Dan didn't hate him or resent him, Dan had depression. He needed lots of care and love - one of the nurses had explained it to him - so that he could get better and feel like himself again, as well as his pills to bring his brain chemistry back into balance.

Jones hoped so, anyway. The last six months had been unpredictable and Dan had barely touched him beyond drunken cuddles and occasional, desperate kisses, which usually indicated that Dan was about to go out and do something that went against his moral compass and everything he stood for.

There had been one night, after Dan had heard Jones yelling at Barley that he was shit, at a party that Jones had only gone to because Dan felt sick at the thought of facing it alone, when Dan had actually wanted him. The words had set off a spark in Dan's brain, and he'd been so full of self-loathing, and alcohol, that he'd pushed Jones against the door of their room and kissed him with such force that Jones had imagined he could feel the pain Dan felt in just existing.

Dan had spent the rest of the night worshipping Jones' body, kissing and biting and sucking and submitting and the next day Jones had walked around in a daze, wondering why he felt so strange - like, a little bit happy but also unbearably sad - until he realised that he really missed Dan, even when they were in the same room. And he didn't know what to do.

Dan was doing weird shit, hanging around with the people he hated, getting so drunk that a couple of times Jones had actually had to drag him most of the way home, and doing just about anything for money. He could have asked Jones for help, but he didn't. He wouldn't even tell Jones why he needed the money or how much. When Jones tried to just give him some Dan had come close to tears. He'd been drunk but he was nearly always drunk now and he'd told Jones that there'd been enough prostitution in this house, and he wasn't going to involve Jones in anything so sordid.

He'd called Jones precious and special and beautiful and had touched his face while his eyes were glassy with tears and it had made Jones want to cry too.

Then Dan'd fallen to his knees and puked all over Jones' jeans before passing out on the hallway floor.

Dan jumping out of that window hadn't actually been that much of a surprise, when it had happened.

Jones had wondered whether Dan would ever get back to normal or whether the nightmare was creeping back in and they were both being sucked down for good. But over the last two weeks Dan _had_ changed. He'd been more relaxed about his world, more interested in what Jones was talking about, more easily drawn in to conversation, quicker to smile (and actually smile with some warmth), and determinedly sober.

Yesterday Jones had felt like things were actually getting back on track. They'd shared a good morning snog, which they hadn't really done in almost a year, and they'd shared breakfast. Jones had been able to lure Dan into a debate about music and bands that neither of them liked anyway and then he'd been able to lure Dan into bed. And they'd stayed there for hours.

Dan had seemed (not back to normal) ...different. But good. And when he'd pointed out that their relationship was still not public knowledge, and that he wanted to change that, Jones had been ready to take that step. He had worried, when he was younger, that people would think he was with Dan just to improve his prospects as a DJ, or that their relationship was strange because of the age difference and the circumstances of their lives, or that he'd be beaten up again, for being queer. He didn't want people looking at him and judging him. Now he didn't care, he just wanted Dan to be happy, to smile again the way he used to when Jones told him about the music different coloured scarves made in the wind, or the fact that every note on his beat up, old, guitar was a different shade of purple, from lilac to violet.

And now Jonatton Yeah? had stepped in to ruin their lives by twisting everything they had into something perverse when it had always been wonderful.

Jones didn't know what to do. So he let Dan keep on kissing his neck and when Dan rubbed his erection against Jones' thigh, he pulled him to the bedroom and told Dan he loved him as many times as he could before Dan laughed and smothered the words with his mouth.


	8. Chapter 8

"You alright, Claire?... D'you need any more tea? Or a glass of wine? Bottle of wine?... Claire?... Was Dan being 'domineering and illicit'? Is that why you had to leave?... Claire? D'you need some more... comforting?"

"Fuck off, Toby."

Toby nodded but didn't try to move from his spot next to Claire on the sofa. Women were complicated and gave mixed signals but ground work and persistence were important, he knew that for a fact, and Toby wasn't about to let this pass him by. Even if Claire did keep telling him to fuck off. She was probably just upset about Dan.

About Dan being gay.

He drank his tea so that Claire would understand he was giving her space and that he wasn't a creep just sitting there watching her breasts go up and down as she breathed, and also so that he didn't accidentally reveal that the whole gay scandal thing confused him. He thought they were all cool with gays, cos it was the naughties and that. Not that _he_ was gay. No way. He didn't understand why a guy would prefer dick to pussy but then, he hadn't been brave enough to try the whole 'stray' thing, so maybe he would never really get it. There was lots of stuff he didn't really get.

Sometimes he felt bad about being straight, like it made him just another sheep or something, or that people would think he was, like, a racist against gays or something, but he was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to be with a guy, even if Dan was doing it for real now.

He hadn't met that Jones guy, but he'd seen him at clubs and raves and stuff and he couldn't be that young 'cos he'd been on the scene for years, and he'd once seen him nut a guy twice his size in the skull for insulting his music so he was pretty sure that Jones could handle Dan, who tended just to insult people using words they didn't understand.

"So, d'you... need comforting now?"

Claire glared at him so hard for a second he thought she might actually try to hit him and he slid away across the sofa.

"What are you even doing here, Toby?"

"He's helping me open jars," Pingu said quietly from the doorway. "But he's going now. Toby? Toby, you're going now."

Toby didn't want to move. If Pingu kicked him out now he might never be let back in and what with Nathan on an "extended leave of fucking-absence, yeah?" at his parents' house in Spain, he didn't really have much to do. Other than go to work. He did need to go to work, but he didn't want to leave Claire, and surely comforting someone in distress was a decent reason for missing a day at the desk?

And if he left now and Claire decided she needed to have sex or something, then Pingu would get the filthy love squeezings and he'd miss out. It had already happened with Barley, brown doors painted white and all that (though he wasn't entirely sure he got that analogy) and the rumour went that she'd had it off with Robin from accounts as well. Everyone was getting some Claire Ashcroft loving except him. He needed to make this happen.

"So Claire," he said, ignoring Pingu and trying to sound smooth and confident but also not intimidating. "You do seem really upset. It must be hard to read that about your brother. And quoting from some mysterious 'close friend' of theirs who you've never met. You must feel really concerned. Or something. But I can help."

He turned to her, giving his sexiest (but also emotionally available) look, but was a little put off when he saw Pingu shake his head slowly and roll his eyes.

"Tell me what you need, babes? Anything you want, I'll make it happen."

He'd heard that women responded to men who made them feel reassured and reminded them of capable men from their past so Claire's snorted laughter was a bit of a strange response but she smiled at him and Toby realised that it was actually working because Claire had leaned in toward him and was looking up at him in a way that _Cosmo_ said girls did to show they were vulnerable but which at the same time drew attention to their tits.

"You want to help me? Toby? You really want to make me feel better? Get SugaRape and Jonatton Yeah? to issue a formal apology to my brother and Jones for writing shit about them. That'd make me feel much better. I might even hug you, and you'll be able to feel my nipples through my shirt when I do. What d'you think of that, hey?"

Toby couldn't believe his luck. Claire was offering up her nipples for his delectation. Sure, bringing down SugaRape was a big task, but a hero was supposed to prove himself to the fair maiden, right? And he was so ready to be centre stage and the main man. He was going to do this thing, whatever this thing ended up being (he hadn't thought of a plan yet, but he would, and there were some really smart people at his work who would probably help) he was going to do it!

"So, does this mean... Dan isn't gay?"

Claire gave him a dark glare and he looked down at his tea cup quickly. He didn't want to jeopardize his boob privileges before they'd even been instated.

"Dan is... Dan and Jones are... they are a couple but it's their own business and shouldn't be gossip. Do you understand me, Toby?"

Claire was using that slow, teacherly voice that was just like his mum's and made him feel like a naughty, stupid little boy - but not in the fun, porn sort of way - and he nodded solemnly before daring to look up at her. He really wanted to make her like him but was seriously worried that he wasn't good enough like Claire, who had opinions and that.

Toby was a secretary. And yeah, he got a lot of shit about that from his mates, and strangers in the pub sometimes, and his dad, but he knew how to write emails and make phone calls and how to get stuff done. He knew about keeping people waiting and rushing them when they weren't ready and pissing people off in a way that made them feel like they couldn't actually do anything about stuff, or that maybe it was their fault. And those were skills even if most people didn't realise it.

Like the rent situation with him and Barley. He'd convinced Nathan that as the primary lease holder he should be paying more than Toby. That since Nathan's parents had paid the bond and most of Nathan's share of the rent was coming from them, Nathan's share _had_ to be bigger, because there were laws about paying rent for a place you weren't living in. Nathan thought Toby just had his best interests at heart. He, and everyone else, thought Toby was too stupid to be up to no good and they were usually right about that, but that didn't mean he was all... natural yoghurt and inoffensively patterned shirts, or something.

He could do wild and out there stuff. He'd taken a blank legal waver form from work once, for Nathan. Except that that hadn't really worked out for the best. He hadn't been caught but he'd stolen from work and he always felt worried that someone would find out. And Nathan had used the form on Dan after the whole 'window' thing. I mean, Dan's mum had got it sorted out, she was well smart, and scary, so it'd all been fine, but it had still made him feel... bad. Claire had been really upset and he didn't want Claire to be upset, he wanted her to be so blown away by his metrosexual manliness and cool that she dropped her panties.

Claire gave him a smile when he looked up, showing her front teeth and all, which was supposed to mean that she was well up for it, and Toby felt himself get excited at the realisation that this was finally on. He grinned back before he realised that he might be coming across as too enthusiastic.

"Don't you worry, Claire," he said, jumping up from the sofa and trying to ignore the fact that he had just sort of spilled tea on his trousers. "I'll do it. You can rely on me!"

He didn't wait for Claire to reply, she was probably overcome with emotion anyway, and marched past Pingu to the door with a swagger he'd copied from that guy in Boondock Saints and had been practicing in front of the mirror.

"You can count on me, Claire!"

He didn't hear Pingu's quiet laughter as he left but he probably wouldn't have thought much of it anyway. Toby was a man on a mission. He'd do what Claire asked him to and then... shit, he still didn't have her phone number. He might have to call Pingu later and get that... But he was definitely going to impress Claire and save the day. There was some seriously good sex on offer, and Toby really liked the idea of sex.


	9. Chapter 9

Claire felt a pang of remorse as she watched Toby leave, but it wasn't a big pang, more of an insignificant twitch. It was wrong to lead him on, yes, but she didn't expect him to actually help in any way and she'd really just wanted to get him out of the flat. He was a sweet guy deep down, and in the grand scheme of dicks, idiots and twats he wasn't so bad, but he was still annoying and Claire had a headache.

Pingu quietly locked the door and moved nervously around to sit in the chair opposite the sofa, cradling his coffee cup as though he was worried he might spill it. His thumbs were still bandaged and splinted and carrying anything required intense concentration and Claire watched Pingu with sympathy. She didn't understand why he chose to hang out with Toby or work with Nathan, but maybe he just didn't know what else was out there for him. It must be hard to be so socially awkward and not know how to stand up for yourself, she supposed, but Pingu should learn to be more assertive. The pity she felt so often in his presence could get annoying.

"Thanks, Pingu," she told him, once he'd put down the coffee and was sitting comfortably and he nodded but didn't look at her. "For letting me crash here and all. It'll only be for a day or two."

"It's fine," Pingu said in his usual quiet voice. "Stay as long as you need."

His voice was just on the wrong side of too soft for Claire but maybe that was just because she'd gotten used to living with Jones' racket. It was odd to be in a flat so quiet and still, but at least there was enough electronic gadgetry and piles of cables to make her feel at home. Her second night at the House of Jones she'd walked in to find Dan spooling extension cords around his forearms while Jones sat on the floor attacking some sort of battery pack with a screwdriver and talking about the different sounds caused by rough joint circuits compared to double clipped spacers, while the most irritating techno played from the corner. Dan had been nodding and grunting in response and Claire had given him a sympathetic look because Dan hated having to listen to mindless idiot drivel, but he'd just glared back at her and kept spooling cable like it was his favourite job. It'd been confusing but she'd thought Dan was pretending to enjoy himself out of spite. Turned out she was wrong.

Just as she was starting to enjoy the silence of Pingu's flat a beat started up somewhere in the building, just loud enough to be annoying, and Claire huffed, getting to her feet and pacing around the small space.

"God, I hate this city."

Pingu looked surprised, and then embarrassed, like it was a personal insult and he was responsible to the behaviour of all of London and it made Claire want to throttle him and tell him to stop being so self-absorbed all the time.

"You know what I mean," she argued. "Dan was right when he said we'd been taken over by idiots. No one cares about anyone else, they're all out to grab some cheap fame rather than working for things that really matter! You can't walk down the high street without having to dodge trendy twats on stupid bikes and wannabe indie rockstars carrying guitars they don't know how to play! And now it turns out Dan's the king of the idiots and is secretly in love with one of them!"

She wanted Pingu to say something back so that she could keep yelling but he was Pingu, so he didn't. Instead he sat there looking nervous, wiping the sweat from his palms onto his tracksuit pants and wincing because he kept bumping his thumbs.

"And you're just as bad, Pingu," Claire told him, hating herself as she did it but unable to control the need to just purge herself of every frustrated feeling and thought that had built up over the last three months. "You put up with all this rubbish and keep propping up idiots like Barley when you could be out there in the real world, getting a proper job, for Christ sake!"

"Is that," Pingu stuttered, staring hard at his coffee cup. "Is that why you're angry at Dan? Because you didn't know about him and Jones before Jonatton went and printed it?"

"I-" Claire sat down with a thump, her anger gone so fast she felt dizzy. "I found out the day before. From Jonatton. His mystery 'source' is me. But I didn't mean to... I didn't want to..."

Pingu nodded, his face going thoughtful as he pressed his lips together the way he did when he was trying to figure out how to turn Barley's random pieces of footage into something that Nathan would approve of but that Pingu would be able to put up on the internet without feeling that he was the worst editor in the world.

Pingu could actually look quite attractive, a voice in Claire's head told her, if he made that face more often, rather than the look of extreme anxiety that he usually wore.

"But the photos are yours?"

"Yeah," Claire whispered, as Pingu's soft manner began to rub off on her. "But I didn't know any of that stuff about his age or his name or how long he and Dan had been going at it. They could have told me when I moved in, really, that would have been polite."

She took a sip of her cold tea so stop herself from yelling again and Pingu mirrored her with his coffee.

"But they were sharing a bedroom already," he pointed out, still looking down. "And they do act pretty much like a couple. It's not that much of stretch to think that maybe they're... lovers."

He blushed as he said the word and Claire tried not smile at the sweetness of Pingu's language.

"It couldn't have been that obvious if I'm not the only person to have missed it. I had ten people stop me in the street on my way here to ask me about it. They think it's mad, like Dan's some sort of dominatrix and Jones is his pet! They were calling Jones _Choir Boy_. It was messed up."

"People don't tend to notice other people unless it's pushed in front of them," was all Pingu said.

"That's what I was saying! No one around here gets it, they're all so wrapped up in their own little worlds!"

"Yeah... I-"

"You know I thought it'd be Dan who went mental over this, but it was Jones who freaked out. Which is ridiculous, right? I mean, even if people have started calling him the Choir Boy, it's just an offshoot of Dan's humiliation. And why would he even want to hide the fact that he's bisexual. I mean, it's not like he's actually gay. He was quick to set me straight about that."

Claire was still bristling from that dressing down. She was up with her gay terminology and being lectured by someone like Jones was irritating, even though she did know her opinion came second to his understanding of himself. It was just hard because talking to Dan or Jones individually was frustrating enough. And trying to talk to Dan _and_ Jones together was bloody infuriating, especially now that she could see the ways that they used one another's presence to avoid confrontation and social interaction in general.

"Did you... did you know lots of gay people then? Growing up?" Pingu asked, sounding anxious again and Claire frowned.

"What? No, not really. But our parents raised us to be compassionate. And liberal thinkers. And I don't see-"

"Well, Jones got beaten up a lot in school for looking a bit like a girl."

"Oh."

"And the whole DJ Jones thing was never that much of a secret, I thought, with the name and the age and all. It's just that most of the people we went went to school with have moved or forgotten, or smoking crack, so no one really remembers that he has another name. Same as me. There's new prats to put up with now. I don't know if one's worse than the other."

Claire shut her mouth and stared incredulously. She'd never heard Pingu talk this much, not even about video games, and it was strange. He actually sounded quite intelligent. And he knew Jones.

"You... you know Jones?" she asked, hating that she sounded so nosey but unable to help her curiosity.

"Mm-hm," Pingu replied.

He checked his coffee cup, saw it was empty and put it back on the coffee table, fidgeting as though he couldn't decide whether to run and hide in the kitchen under the premise of making more or staying put and making the most of talking to someone who probably wasn't going to pull a prank on him that would end with a trip to A&E. It seemed like a tough choice but eventually he put his hands carefully in his lap and started talking again and Claire smoothed her features into her earnest listing look.

"Jones was a few years below me at school but we got along. He kipped on my couch a bit after he left his mum but then I lost my lease and had to move in with my parents again for a bit so he moved on. He didn't talk much, and I don't talk much. He's pretty rubbish at video games too, so..."

"Moved on where?" Claire asked, trying not to sound like she was doing an interview.

She didn't want Pingu to freak out and stop talking. He had a nice sounding voice actually, once you got used to the fact that you had to lean in to hear him properly.

"You know that bus shelter at the end of the street? Near the newsagent?"

"He was homeless?"

Pingu thought about it a moment and then nodded, like it was a fairly straight-forward concept to grasp.

"Yeah."

"But-" Claire fought against the tightness in her throat. _But helping the homeless is my Cause!_ her brain screamed at her, and she felt her face begin to flush in the way it always did when her emotions started to get out of hand. "My god! Why did I not know any of this?"

Pingu frowned again and cocked his head to one side and Claire shuffled on the couch, uncomfortable with how he was looking at her. She didn't care about people staring at her body, that happened a lot and she was not above using her breasts to make idiot men do what she needed, because if they were going to be distracted by mammary glands they deserved what they got, but Pingu was staring at her like he was trying to rearrange the facts he knew about her and she felt like she'd just come up short.

When Pingu came around to sit next to her on the sofa, shoulders hunched and hands still held protectively in front of himself, Claire didn't think about how he was probably just looking to feel her up like every other man who sat next to her was. All she could think of was how Pingu looked quite small and a bit vulnerable, and how Jones had looked the same way when he'd sat next to Dan, and how Dan had kissed him on the temple like loving someone enough to be affectionate in front of others was the easiest thing in the world if you wanted to badly enough.

"It's ok, Claire," Pingu told her quietly, still not actually close enough to be invading her space, and Claire sniffed and failed to hold back the feeling that she was about to cry. "You haven't been here that long and you've been... busy?"

"I've been a self-absorbed twat, you mean."

Pingu gave a little laugh, and Claire looked up in time to see him smile.

"A bit. Nathan does that to people though. He's such a dickhead he makes everyone around him short tempered... and short sighted."

"Except you," Claire pointed out, shuffling herself a little closer.

"Well, well, um," Pingu stuttered and Claire felt another pang of sympathy when he looked down at his bandaged hands. "I don't think I'm a great example of how to deal with Barley."

"Well, maybe," she smiled, leaning her shoulder against Pingu's until he smiled too. But the feeling of happiness was short-lived. "I've really screwed things up with Dan and Jones haven't I?" she sighed, putting her head on Pingu's shoulder. "Should I be calling him Jones? Or Thomas? Or Tom? What do his friends call him? Not that he'd consider me a friend."

She was rambling but Pingu let out a happy noise that was almost a laugh and that stopped her.

"What?"

"Jones. I just remembered. He used to say that he and I should be out tracking down Dick."

"What?" Claire sat up and turned to face Pingu, who was smiling now, his lips twitching like he was trying not to laugh. "Why?"

"Well," Pingu's voice cracked as he tried to talk and Claire found herself grinning right along with him, simply because Pingu laughing was infectious and she'd never really heard it before. Not like this. "His name's Tom, and mine's Harry. He thought we should find a guy named Dick and start a band. But he used to say it like we were trying to, you know, do something else. It was funny."

He gave that snuffly sort of laugh again, like he was embarrassed that he still found Jones' joke so funny and Claire realised that Pingu looked really sweet when he laughed, even when he was covering his mouth and closing his eyes. He looked... sweet.

"That sounds like Jones," she said quietly and Pingu nodded, pulling himself together and even glancing at her face.

"What does Dan call him?" he asked, suddenly serious again.

"He calls him Jones as far as I know. In front of me at least."

Claire frowned but Pingu nodded, and looked up at her again.

"Then I think we should keep calling him Jones," he said simply. "If he wanted to be called Tom we'd probably know about it."

Claire agreed but it was hard to concentrate on what was being said. She'd realised how close she was to Pingu again, and that the way he was holding her gaze made her feel a bit drunk. She moved her head forward a bit more, until their noses were almost touching and she could hear Pingu's nervous breathing.

"And what about you? What can I call you?"

"Huh?" Pingu murmured, his eyes almost shut and his body beginning to shake.

"Can I call you Harry?"

She closed the space between them and let her lips push against his, taking his bottom lips between her two and sucking it until he opened his mouth and she could deepen the kiss. Pingu, Harry, whoever he wanted to be called, made a surprised noise into her mouth which quickly turned into a moan when Claire pushed her fingers through his hair and ran her nails across his scalp and Claire smiled, pulling back to look at him before diving in for another kiss.

She didn't know why she was doing it, other than that it had felt like the right thing to do just now, and while it was a bit weird to be kissing Pingu of all people, that didn't mean she was going to stop.

"Harry," he gasped when she pulled back for another breath. "You can call me Harry. Please."

Claire smiled. She could see that Pingu - no, Harry, she corrected herself - was hard, his track pants did nothing to hide it, and wondered how frustrated he must be, with both hands bandaged and no one around to help him out.

She pushed against his erection with her hand and felt a shiver go through her when he moaned her name.

There was a lot of things she needed to sort out and the next few days were going to be hard and emotional, and probably humiliating, but right now she needed to get rid of the tension that had built up over the past two weeks and the stress of the last few months. It was only reasonable.

She pulled Pingu - Harry - to his feet, smiling again at how strange the name sounded in her head. People around here had too many secrets, and tomorrow she'd sort that, but not just now.

"Come on, Harry," she said, kissing him until he started to make high pitched whimpering noises through his nose. "Show us your bedroom. Time for you and I to get properly acquainted, don't you think?"


	10. Chapter 10

Sasha was furious. Her usual state of being was sixty percent annoyance, twenty percent disdain, ten percent despair, and ten percent joy at knowing she was superior in intellect and physical appearance to just about everyone around her. It wasn't ideal but thus far it was the only way she'd been able to successfully cope with her life. Right now she just felt angry, which threw off her internal balance completely, which in turn made her feel even more furious. And there were already so many reasons to be beyond incandescent at this situation.

Her first response when she'd arrived at work that morning and seen the abomination that was the latest issue of SugaRape was - she was ashamed to admit - to be angry at Dan. She'd been giving him signals at work for years and he'd never really responded. Well, he'd stare like every other man in the office when she leant over his desk in a low cut blouse, but he'd never tried anything on. She'd assumed it was laziness on Dan's part, but she'd kept at it because Dan was a beautiful mess and not the sort of crush one could get over easily. Finding out that he'd had a lover all these years made her feel stupid, like she'd been played. She was usually good at picking up on whether someone was gay, and she hadn't felt it with Dan, and he'd never said he was in a relationship, when he could have, easily. It was infuriating, like everything else Dan did.

At which point she'd realised that getting angry at someone for not making the details of their private life public knowledge - especially in an environment where people were mocked for everything - was idiotic. Dan tended to be oblivious to what other people needed from him and hyper aware of even the most subtle criticism. He probably hadn't even been aware of her signals, and if she hadn't picked up on the fact that he was interested in men rather than women, well, that was hardly anyone's fault.

But Sasha wasn't about to waste her energy being angry at herself. Not when she could be angry at Jonatton. Of all the people she had met in her life, Jonatton Yeah? was probably Sasha's least favourite. He was manipulative and sly and used his significant intelligence to make the world a darker and more sordid place than it already was. He was a prick, and if Sasha could afford to leave SugaRape, she would.

One day she wouldn't be juggling caring for her two younger sisters with completing a part-time law degree and maintaining a full time job. One day she would leave this place and never look back. But until that day she would just do as little actual work at SugaRape as humanly possible.

She was particularly cross that Jonatton had used her in his hatchet job on Dan's reputation. He'd asked her to do some last minute research yesterday, background info on a DJ he wanted to feature and she'd done it grudgingly. Ned had only just sent through the completely lay-out for that months issue and she wasn't sure that there was room for another article but it was none of her business if the magazine looked shit, so she'd put half an hour aside to see what she could find out about the mysterious 'Jones'.

At first there was nothing. He was a DJ, he worked days at Stanley Knives, one of Shoreditch's coolest salons, and had a regular Friday night set at H8nuPx, a club that had somehow managed to maintain a high level of underground integrity even after ten years. It was the sort of place that featured hardcore techno and experimental noise. It wasn't her scene but at least it had a history. Reading the club's website was fascinating but it didn't tell her much about Jones, other than the fact that he would be back in the booth this Friday after a two week holiday - and a picture.

The picture had been a shock. She'd seen Jones before, in the hospital when she'd gone to visit Dan. He'd been running around making phone calls and talking to nurses and she hadn't really connected him with Dan at the time but seeing that photograph made her wonder whether he was the mysterious friend who Dan said was looking after him.

In the end she'd called H8nuPx, given them some story about trying to contact Jones for a party and needing payment information for him. They'd faxed through his basic info including a name, date of birth and address which she'd passed on to Jonatton without another thought. Now she wished she hadn't.

Sasha massaged her temples delicately to try and clear the headache building up behind her eyes without ruining her eyeliner. It was only three p.m. but felt like it should be five thirty at least. This level of anger was draining. Not to mention the number of calls and emails she'd received about Jonatton's surprise article.

She'd read the thing three times now and could see how it would appeal to the gossiping idiots who thought SugaRape was the bible of cool. They'd turn on Dan in an instant, claim to have seen through his facade from the start, and there was a dozen badly written emails to the magazine asking why their loyal readers hadn't been informed earlier about Dan's behaviour, and whether they had fired him yet.

Sasha thought it was funny (by which she actually meant repugnant) that people who had loved the 'Vice' issue, and joked about the idea of molesting under-age girls, were incensed by the knowledge that Dan Ashcroft was in an affair with a younger man. She wondered how many of them had read the article carefully and how many had simply read the headlines and highlights. Jonatton had worded things to make it seem that Dan was keeping an underage lover through manipulation while not actually stating so. He'd published Jones' full name and his age, which was twenty-three and nothing to write home about at all, but had added the fact that Dan had been living with Jones since 1997, at which time Jones, or rather, Thomas Pearce, had been only seventeen.

Their youngest readers couldn't understand why it was an issue. She had seven emails attesting to that, at least. But most of their readers were approaching if not already past 30 (though most wouldn't admit to it) and had come to maturity in a time when androgyny was no longer cool and homosexuality was still only provisionally legal. When Margaret Thatcher had made the promotion of homosexuality illegal and the fear of AIDS had swept the nation. In 1997, if Jones was only seventeen, their relationship _would_ have been illegal.

People might not remember the details but the memory of it, the fear of all things gay, was still there in the back of their minds. She had twenty-seven emails attesting to the fact that their 'older' readers weren't cool with Dan Ashcroft anymore.

She wrote out a memo of each email to give to Jonatton, hating the fact that he would take pleasure in every instance of hate but doing it anyway. He needed to see what he had caused, and that not everyone agreed with what he'd done. He never read emails she forwarded to his account but he rarely ignored hand-written memos.

Sasha's computer _bing'd_ to inform her of a new email and she sighed when she saw that it was from _'Place'_ administration. Doug Rocket was insufferable and Jonatton considered it one of his best jokes that he'd managed to never actually talk to the man. He'd made Sasha and Dan do that for him. She couldn't imagine Rocket to be happy about the article, he was big on love an sexuality needing to be "boundless and without... bounds..." as he'd once told her at a party.

She opened the email, ready to lose what little faith she had left in the human race, and instead smiled for the first time that day. Jonatton was not going to like this. And she wasn't going to tell him about it until she'd done as much damage as possible. Then she was going to apply for a job at _Place._


	11. Chapter 11

**This chapter could make people who have issues with vomiting feel uncomfortable, I'm not sure what the exact warning should be but, yeah, please be ****aware. Thank you.**

* * *

><p>Seven steps, that's all it was, just seven little steps and he'd be there. He did it every other day without even thinking so why did it suddenly seem like the most impossible thing in the world to do? Well, he knew why, but that didn't actually help much.<p>

Jones stared at the front door and tried, again, to talk himself into opening it. His gear was packed and ready to go in the milk crates he'd appropriated over the years and strapped to the rusty sack truck he'd adopted from the skip behind the minimart. He just needed to open the door and walk through it, but he couldn't make himself take those last few steps.

Tonight was supposed to be his big return. He hadn't done a set at the club since Dan's accident, and had only done a handful of shifts at Stanley Knives as well, and tonight was supposed to mark his return to work. His bosses had been really understanding about the need to take time off when he said his best mate/housemate had jumped out of a window and needed looking after, but he and Dan needed the money so two weeks was all he could realistically take off.

He'd been excited about it, his fingers itching to get out there and perform for a crowd rather than just his sitting room, even if Dan was an appreciative audience in his own way. Now he wasn't sure he wanted to leave the house ever again.

His phone had been buzzing so much Dan had threatened to throw it against the wall, a fate his own mobile had already met, but Jones knew it was just the stress of the day finally getting to him. Getting to them both. So far there were nineteen messages on his phone and they were all about the article in SugaRape. Half a dozen had been from the team at Stanley Knives, first warning him about the article and then telling him that they supported him one hundred percent and that no copy of SugaRape would make it through their salon doors ever again. Another had been from his boss at H8nuPx, asking if he was he still ok to come in to work. That had been quite nice really.

But the other messages had been from people he barely knew, and some of them had made him want to vomit.

He still wanted to vomit. He had time. It was only a quarter to six. His set wasn't until nine but he'd wanted to get there early, before the streets got busy with partiers. So that he could sneak into the club by the back door and avoid notice, the voice in his head added, because he was scared.

Because he was absolutely terrified.

He fiddled with the beads on his wrist, spinning and winding them around, feeling the cheap elastic pulling at his skin, trying to count them with his fingers as he stared at the door and the pattern in the wood, wishing the gentle clack of the pieces of colourful plastic would calm him like they usually did before a gig.

One of the messages had threatened to 'Fuk u up m8' for 'ruining' Dan Ashcroft.

Jones turned and sprinted to the bathroom, hitting the tiles so hard that a shock wave went up through his knees and made his back ache. He grabbed the toilet bowl, trying to take proper breaths, but it wasn't working. All he could think of was that he'd ruined Dan Ashcroft. That his life, his existence, his love for Dan, had ruined things.

His sobs sounded strange in the tiled room, magnified but not quite echoing. They were almost muted, bouncing at him from odd angles and making him feel dizzy. He tried closing his eyes but the insides of his eyelids were full of sparks like fire crackers on bonfire night and it made him feel worse.

Jones opened his mouth because the creeping feeling in his stomach and throat was getting worse, but nothing came out. He stuck out his tongue, like a kid at the health clinic, staring into the toilet bowl, willing it to happen, but there was still nothing, just the desperate feeling that he _needed_ to vomit, wouldn't be able to move until he did, even though his knees were throbbing and he had to get to work.

Jones sobbed, his breath ripping out of his lungs, and brought his fingers carefully to his mouth. He tried one finger first but his knuckles just bumped against his teeth so he moved his thumb around and tried two, creeping them to the back of his tongue and feeling the gag build. It was the worst feeling ever, like he was pulling his soul out through his mouth, and tears began to tumble down his cheeks like boiling bath water until, finally, he was able to puke.

He tried to pull his fingers out of the way but wasn't quick enough and gagged again at the warm stickiness on them, which brought up what was left of his stomach contents in three, cramping, waves.

He sobbed again, his nose running like a toddler's, and looked around for the loo roll, wishing now that he'd just put up with the feeling of _needing_ to vomit, rather than actually doing it. He held his fingers away from him, not wanting to look until he could clean them, but the cheap toilet paper ripped and stuck to his damp fingers like some sort of grotesque, failed, papier-mache, and even after he'd wiped his hands and face as hard as he could he still felt mingin'.

He turned the tap on, listening to the water rushing through the ancient pipes and making them rattle. Ghost music he always called it, and Dan always called him daft but laughed all the same. He concentrated on that sound, and the feel of the water against his skin, until he finally felt calm again. A glance in the mirror told him he'd need to redo his make-up but it also showed him Dan, leaning on the wall in the hallway, watching him with eyes so tired it made _Jones_ want to sleep for a week, nightmares be damned.

"Dan," he whispered, his voice croaky and raw.

"D'you do that often?" Dan whispered back.

"What?"

"Stick your fingers down your throat and make yourself sick. You know what I mean."

His voice was still quiet but so hard it make Jones jump and he shook his head quickly, his damp hair flicking about his face and distracting him even though he wanted to give Dan his attention.

"I just felt ill," he said, wishing he didn't sound like he was begging. "I never done it before. It was gross, I don't want to do it again, ever. I'm sorry."

Dan heaved a sigh that was worn out and sad, but beautiful at the same time - like an old rag doll, limp and loose - and held out his arms. Jones went to him, knowing Dan was probably too sore to walk right now, leaning against the wall, his chest heaving and forehead sweaty. It wasn't a passionate hug, or a 'we should have sex' hug, or the sort of comforting cuddle like they'd been having a lot of over the last couple of weeks. It was one of those sad ones, the kind where they just held each other, not tight or close, only enough to be touching, like they didn't want to break one another, and Jones felt his eyes start to burn again.

"I'm really sorry, Dan," he breathed. "Shall I just stay home?"

Dan rumbled a no, deep in his chest, and wrapped his arms a little tighter around Jones' chest so that he could lean in and press a kiss to the top of his head.

"Not unless you can live without coffee. We're nearly out and well... money..."

"Yeah..." Jones stared at the weave of Dan's shirt, thin and worn so you could pick out the individual threads, and older than their friendship. "Money's a bitch."

"Mmm," Dan responded, the tone of his voice a little higher, back into the range that Jones thought of as 'not-quite-as-depressed Dan' pitch. "But coffee is good."

"Yeah," Jones agreed, huffing a short breath through his nose that was almost a laugh, like he was sneezing at the unexpected happiness, he thought.

"Did you... want me to come with you tonight?"

Jones looked up. Dan's face was a bit grey and his skin was going all clammy, like it did at the end of the day when he was so tired he couldn't pretend that his wrist and leg weren't throbbing like hell, and that he wasn't desperate for a drink. He looked like a mess and Jones couldn't help but smile.

"Nah," he shook his head. "Dan, H8nuPx ain't just an 'underground' club, in the cool way. It's _actually_ down a flight of stairs. _You_ can barely make it from the bedroom to the loo. You'd have no chance. I'd just be worrying about you all night." He took a deep breath. "I'll be worrying about you as it is. You sure you'll be ok?"

"You sure _you'll_ be ok?" Dan shot back and looked so sulky that Jones felt his shoulders begin to shake with the laughter that he couldn't stop.

"Oh, Dan. I'll be right. I'm a big boy... despite what your wanker boss's been writing about me."

Dan's sulk intensified as his face ducked down and his brows drew together and when he mumbled he sounded the way Jones figured he had when was he was a teenager.

"He's not my boss anymore, I quit. If anything, you're the sugar daddy now. Providing for your elderly lover in his infirmity."

"God, Dan, do say shit like that, it's well creepy."

Dan smiled. It was quick and tight, a twitch of his lips and little more, but Jones saw it and it made him feel like there was a warm bubble bath in his chest, making him feel cozy and clean and a bit excited as well.

"I wanna kiss you, Dan, but my breath's..."

"A bit off," Dan provided and Jones nodded, slipping out of the embrace and walking backwards into the bathroom, not wanting to take his eyes off Dan, even for a moment.

"You can try and wait up for me if you like?" he said around a mouthful of toothpaste.

Why did the urge to talk always quadruple when he was brushing his teeth? It made him look like a dribbling twat but he couldn't help it, the second he had something in his mouth, his brain thought of something that just needed to be said. There was a dirty joke in there, but laughing with a mouth full of minty suds was worse than talking so he tried to ignore it, but kept talking to Dan around his toothbrush all the same.

"Oh, can I?" Dan murmured, raising an eyebrow.

"Yep. I'll be back early, I don't feel like sticking round after my set or nothing. I'll be home before midnight."

"I'll try," Dan said with a tired smile and Jones suddenly felt a stab of guilt.

"Well, no, don't stay up if you're tired. Sorry. I don't want you exhausting yourself, you're supposed to be resting, just," he knew he was babbling but Dan wasn't stopping him. He spit his toothpaste into the sink for something to do, watching it slime its way slowly toward the plug hole, but couldn't stop the words from bubbling out of him as well. "Just, ignore what I said, ok? You should be in bed right now, not leaning on the wall and watching me act like a stupid emo or something. Go to bed, Dan. I'll get you a tea or somethin' before I go and I'll sleep on the couch or somethin' when I get home so I don't wake you. I just-"

"Shut up."

It was something Dan said to everyone, muttered fast and sharp, and it made Jones want to burst into tears because it was something Dan usually did when he just couldn't deal with the Idiots anymore. Jones didn't want to be an idiot but he worried a lot that he was.

"Sorry."

"No," Dan groaned, bringing his hands up to his head like he wanted to block the sound out, then swearing viciously when he hit himself in the face with his wrist cast, again.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't say sorry! Please, Jones? None of this is your fault. It's-"

"Not yours either, then," Jones finished for him. He hated it when Dan's voice became so pleading - when they were outside of the bedroom in any case - and Dan sighed at him and gave him another tired, half-smile.

"You and me," he said thoughtfully. "Made for each other." But he said it like he wasn't quite sure whether it was a good thing or not.

"Yeah... Dan I'm scared."

"Come here," Dan told him and he went and let Dan cup his chin in one hand, running his thumb over the stubble Jones hadn't bothered to shave away. "Anything happens, you nut them, alright? You're a grown man and you don't have to put up with that shit. And definitely not while you're working. Go to work. Give 'em hell. Make their ears bleed."

"If I didn't know better I'd say you weren't a fan of my music Mr Ashcroft."

Dan growled and put his hand possessively over Jones' arse, pulling him in tight until he could run his nose along Jones', which made Jones shiver.

"I am your biggest fan Mr Jones and you know it. Now go to work, and when you get back I will make it worth your while."

Jones closed his eyes and tried to stop the feeling that the bubbles from his chest were trying to burst their way out of his body. No one should be allowed to have a voice so deep and creamy and... just so damned sexy, and he needed to take a moment before he could even answer.

After at least two moments of not being able to calm his heart Jones just settled for kissing Dan instead, which didn't exactly help his excitement levels, but was the easiest way to let Dan know how much he was loved and wanted and that he needed to look after himself. The scratch of his bristled chin against Dan's sent a thrill through his mind, and straight to his groin, and he considered calling the club and saying he just couldn't come in tonight because how could anyone fight against a sound like that?

Dan let the kiss happen, curling his tongue around Jones' before pulling back and nipping at his bottom lip until Jones worried his knees might give way. But he was not about to bloody well swoon over Dan Ashcroft! He'd never hear the end of it if he did, Dan'd crow about it for years.

"What are you gonna get up to while I'm gone off bein' the breadwinner? Coffee and pot noodle winner? Whatever..." Jones asked between jagged breaths, trying seem unflustered even though Dan was kissing up his jaw line to bite his ear in a way that made his eyelashes flutter like a less voluptuous Betty Boop.

Dan let out a subdued chuckle and kissed Jones' forehead.

"I'll probably just... you know..." he stopped kissing and just leaned his face, sighing, into Jones' hair. "Call my mum, probably."

"Wow. Wild times in the House of Jones," Jones teased winding his arms up around Dan's neck and pulling him into a proper cuddle. "Except that you threw your phone at the wall."

"There's this thing called a landline, you fetus," Dan muttered with mock outrage but the amusement floated through the words like a harmony that made Jones want to cry for a completely different reason.

"Shut it, old man," he laughed. The tension was gone and the fear with it, and he nuzzled in to Dan until the taller man squirmed away because Jones' kisses were tickling his neck. "I expect you in bed when I get back. Give your mum my love."

He gave Dan another quick kiss, getting a kick out of the slap sound their lips made as they connected, and ducked back to the bathroom to redo his eyeliner.

By the time he was done Dan had hobbled into the kitchen and was making himself a cup of tea.

"Remember," he told Jones as he prepared himself to actually go out the front door. "Make their ears bleed. And if they make trouble... make their noses bleed too."

"Love you, Dan."

"You too, Jonesy. Always."

Jones gave him a nod, grabbed the handle of his sack truck and opened the door. He could do this. He was there to work the decks and like as not no one would even recognise him. What was the worst that could happen?

"Fuck," he whispered as he closed the door behind him, so Dan wouldn't hear. Why'd he have to think that?


	12. Chapter 12

"Dan and Jones? _Dan and Jones?_ You're not serious? I mean, you don't actually believe that do ya, Ned? Dan Ashcroft, the _writer_ - our Preacher Man Dan - with DJ Jones, the guy from the hairdressers who puts girls toys on his decks? Shit off mate, they barely know each other."

Ned scrunched his eyebrows and tried to navigate his way along the crowded street. It was Friday night and the clubs were banging but he just wasn't feeling it.

"Yeah, but Rufus right, there's the photos-"

"Photoshop, mate," Rufus replied, rolling his eyes and readjusting his ironically small hat. "You're a graphic designer, can't you tell a fake when you see one? I saw it straight off."

Ned didn't want it to seem like he was just pissed that Jonatton hadn't used any of his layout for the current issue, or the photo spread he'd put together of the new 'tiny pets' trend hitting London straight from Hollywood. Jonatton's pictures, and the article about Dan, had gone in instead and even though it looked like Jonatton had just taken out the pet pics and put in his own and pasted his new story over the old one, Jonatton reckoned it was all his own work - which meant that Ned wasn't getting paid.

But he didn't want it to seem like he wasn't laid back and cool with stuff like this cos the last guy Jonatton Yeah? had labeled "uptight" had left SugaRape a complete social reject and was now apparently working at Dixons. Like actual _Dixons!_ The _shop!_ And Ned didn't want to end up at Dixons. Those guys had scheduled lunch breaks and sales targets and he just wasn't ready for that kind of high pressure environment. But he still wasn't entirely comfortable with Jonatton Yeah's actions over the last twenty-four.

"Yeah," he said casually, "but Dan and the DJ live at the same house."

"We live at the same house! Doesn't mean I'm bumming ya! "

"But-"

"Fuck off, Ned, you poof. I'm not gonna bum ya."

Rufus was laughing but looked a bit uncomfortable as well, like he got when they heard a really brainy joke and they both had to act like they totally got it when really they were thinking to each other that anything _that_ clever couldn't actually be funny.

"Haha, yeah, like I'd want an arse ramming. I'm a muff man. My hair's even a homage to 70s bush."

"Right, good one. But that whole Dan and Jones thing was Jonatton having a, like, breakdown or some shit cos Dan's quit SugaRape."

Now this was news to Ned.

"He's quit 'Rape?"

"Yeah. 'Cos it's goin' all mainstream an shit. I heard he had _'artistic differences'_ with Yeah?, yeah?"

"Really?"

"Yeah. So Jonatton nicked pics off Claire Ashcroft's phone of Dan and the DJ just sittin' 'round-"

"Claire? Dan's hot sister?"

"The hot piece of Girl-Ashcroft."

"Nice."

Rufus put his fist up and Ned bumped it. Brain jokes they might not get but they knew a hot sister when they saw one. They'd thought about naming them SILFs, for Sisters I'd Like to Fuck, but Rufus had pointed out that it sounded a bit like syphilis, and they weren't sure if it was cool to joke about that shit yet. No one had said they could, and they didn't really want to imply that they had an STI, not even ironically. So they'd dropped the acronym and just did a fist bump to show that _they_ knew what they were talking about, even if no one else did.

"She was bangin' Nathan Barley, 'til she kicked him in the balls over the Trashbat pilot debacle," Ned grinned. That video had gone seriously viral and he'd watched it like, a heap of times, before it was mysteriously taken off the internet when Nathan went to Spain.

"Bum... but, like, narrative - Yeah? stole pics off Claire's phone and shopped Dan and the DJ's heads onto some gay porn."

"For real?"

"Like ultra reality smash down."

"Bum. That is well underhanded."

"Truth. And 'Rape's going down cos Ashcroft's walked and Jonatton's just stirring shit 'cos he's lost control of the place and it's like, well, like-"  
>"Like Fraulein Rottenmeier and Heidi an' all."<p>

Rufus stopped, making a face at the group of girls who had been walking behind them and were squawking about having to go around, before giving Ned a seriously... well, serious, 'wtf' look.

"What?"

"Heidi," Ned said slowly. "It's like a book, an' shit. What I read."

"Oh. Well intellect."

"... Yeah..."

"Maybe don't say that sort of brain fart stuff in front of people we know though, yeah?"

"Right," Ned nodded.

He wasn't sure that _Heidi_ was that intellectual, he'd read it as a kid. But then again, the only other person who'd even known what he was talking about when he mentioned it was Dan, so maybe it was a brain book.

"So, shall we like, hit the clubs and snag the sugar muffs?"

Rufus nodded and started walking again. They would have brought their scooters so they didn't have to walk like losers but last week they'd been kicked out of a club before they even got in because the chick at the cloakroom refused to check their rides in, even when they'd folded them up. Which seemed unfair to Ned, because they were really very compact. But it had totally rained on their night and they were not going to let that happen again.

"You know where we should go?" Rufus said with the grin that always meant that he was going to say something mental and so ironically cool even Ned didn't always follow it. "We should go to that H8 place where that Jones guy works. Bet it's all going down there tonight."

"Oh, that is well clash. But," Ned looked at Rufus but tried not to look earnest. "I thought you said it was all a load of bollocks?"

"It is," Rufus assured him. "But the idiots, yeah? They don't know that it's a load of bollocks and they'll all be down there to get a glimpse of _The Choir Boy_ and we'll be the only ones who are _really_ cool because we'll know that it's not really cool to be like hating on a guy just for getting bummed, plus he isn't even really getting bummed at all and only idiots will think he is, but we can pretend he is but know that he's not, yeah?"

"Yeah..." Ned blinked. His contact lenses were itching again but he couldn't take them out because he'd left his prescription glasses at home because Rufus said that they weren't dope enough (the ones he had on he wore purely because they were ironic and made a statement about social expectations and that). "Right, let's go see The Choir Boy sing!"

"Right. Until someone asks us if that's what we're doing and then we can tell 'em that we're only there ironically."

"Righteous."

Ned smiled and nodded. As long as it was ironic it was ok. But he could really do with a beer right now, and possibly a sit down. He really did miss his scooter.

The club, whatever it was actually called, was packed, and the bouncer at the top of the stairs looked ready to smash a face in without too much stirring, so they decided to play it safe and just wait in the queue with everyone else, even though they agreed it was lame. And it meant they didn't actually get down the stairs to the club until nearly ten. But when they did it was well plastic.

The place was heaving and so loud Ned felt like his ears were going to start bleeding at any moment but everyone around them was enjoying it so he supposed it was ok. There sure were a lot of women - muffs, he corrected himself - with a lot of piercings and tattoos and that, and dudes in make-up... and Rufus didn't look too impressed actually.

Then the music shifted, like someone was running a knife down a china plate and the crowd began screaming and putting their fists in the air, but in a good way, which meant that this was probably, definitely cool, even if it hurt. He looked up at the DJ booth and felt his eyes go so wide he had to blink a couple of times to make sure his contact lenses didn't fall out, or something. He sort of recognised DJ Jones, from Stanley Knives, and the 'apparently' shopped pictures from the magazine, but he was pretty sure he'd never seen him looking so... attractive.

"He looks like a fuckin' slinky!" Rufus yelled into his ear and Ned winced but had to agree. Blokes weren't supposed to have hips were they? But the Jones guy was moving his body like a chick, hips going from side to side like a proper Beyonce - he had a waist too! A proper hour-glass figure - and there were women at the front of the crowd going wild for it. And dudes. The rest of the crowd were just getting lost in the music/overwhelming noise and weren't paying attention, but Ned couldn't help feeling like he wanted to be down the front, watching the DJ and screaming right along with the groupies.

Which was totally not cool. 'Cos he was cool with gays and that, but that didn't mean he was one. And some blokes kissed other blokes for kicks and that was well punk and subversive and all, but he really wasn't up for doing it himself. I mean, he'd nearly kissed guys a couple of times at college, but that was normal, right?

Except that the DJ up there was biting his lip like he was starring in a Dutch Arthouse film and Ned did kinda want to kiss him. A lot.

Maybe he was really a chick, with hips like that. Except he had stubble on his face and hairy arms - like, really hairy arms - and hairy arm pits and, when he lifted one arm up above his hand to punch the air along with the crowd, Ned could see a dark, hairy, snail's trail going down from the guy's bellybutton and disappearing into his incredibly tight jeans. Yeah, he was definitely a bloke.

He could sort of see why Ashcroft was with him. 'Cos Dan was the sort of guy to wank of another dude for money so it was public know that he wasn't scared of cock. He'd probably kissed loads of guys at college. And Jones was like, hardcore Techno, which meant he was probably up for anything. And this crowd seemed to think he was like, the second coming of Christ, or something.

Preacher Man Dan with the Second-Christ Jones. That was well righteous. He turned to tell Rufus and looked around frantically when he wasn't there. He worried, for like a micro-second, that he'd been stabbed by a fierce eyebrow piercing or something, then saw him dancing, right near the front, hands in the air and his eyes closed like he was really getting into it.

Well if Rufus was dancing then he was allowed to too.

It was official: Jones the Choir Boy was cool!


	13. Chapter 13

Dan didn't really have any complains about his parents or his childhood. His dad was a teacher, his mum was a solicitor, his little sister was a pain in the arse. His childhood hadn't been an unhappy one and if he didn't smile much, well, smiling was overrated.

The hospital psychologist had asked but he couldn't think of anything that had been particularly traumatic or out of the ordinary, no tragic backstory to point to as the reason for the chronic depression which had been part of his life since he was about fifteen years old. She'd told him, the psychologist, that there didn't need to be a triggering event - there sometimes was - but there didn't have to be.

Dan was just depressed and that was supposed to be ok.

He hated it. It made him feel weak and useless and the idea of even acknowledging it's existence by taking the damn pills every single day made him want to spend the rest of his life living as a hermit in a cave. Except that he knew for a fact that living without Jones wasn't an option.

His mum would probably kill him if anything happened to Jones. The two of them had only ever spoken on the phone, usually at Christmas, but she'd taken a real shine to his "little, musical friend", as she put it. Dan suspected that his mum suspected that there was more going on than just friendship but she was the sort of mother who would wait until he was ready, even if it took years. She always told her children that she had her own life and job to be getting on with and wouldn't chase them down to try and learn their secrets. She would be there if they needed her and would never turn them away but she was not the sort of person to call every week or send money they didn't ask for. Sometimes Dan wished she would.

She called at Christmas and on birthdays and had called just before Claire came to stay to remind Dan to "be nice" and sometimes she'd call to tell him that she loved him, out of the blue, and Dan was only just realising how much he appreciated that.

Over the last two weeks she'd probably received more phone calls from the House of Jones than the last six years combined and a lot of those calls had been made by Jones. He'd called the Ashcrofts after Dan's accident, both before he went to the hospital and after, and he'd given them regular updates until Dan came home. Claire had called, in tears, several times, which had lead to Mrs Ashcroft's involvement in what she called the "Nathan Barley Affair", but Dan hadn't rung her until now. He didn't know what he'd been expecting but apparently his mum was in one of her rare, melancholy moods. Dan had a sneaking suspicion that it was his fault.

...

"I do worry about you."

"Mum, I'm fine."

"Do you... do you remember Davey?"

"Mum, don't."  
>"You were only ten when he died and I've always wondered..."<p>

"It didn't fu- screw me up, mum. Nothing you guys did warped me or ruined me, alright?"

"You talked about it for months. Every time we got into the car."

"Mum-"

"Your dad used to dread taking you anywhere because the second he turned on the engine you'd start asking questions about how much it would have hurt, how much blood people have in them, whether the man who did it went to prison. Every night you'd want to talk about what would happen to you if your dad or I died. Where Claire would go if _she_ died. You wouldn't cross the road without checking it was clear a dozen times. We should have sent you to counseling. But people didn't in those days, and we were... busy. "

Dan sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his thumb and trying not to get cross at his mum just for being his mum and for remembering something which he had honestly not thought about in years.

"You didn't do anything wrong, mum. I was a kid, he was my mate, he died. Of course I talked about it. It's got nothing to do with this."

"But then you stopped talking about everything. Your nan said you were just hitting moody puberty but..."

"Mum, please don't?"

"And I've never really been the sort of person to... want to talk."  
>"Well, you're talking now."<p>

She chuckled down the phone at his irritation and he couldn't help sighing at her, which happened a lot. They were a bit too alike sometimes.

"So what's this new problem with the magazine that you need fixing then?"

Dan huffed. Talking to his mum was easier when it was Jones doing the actual talking and he could just yell from across the room.

"I don't need you to _fix_ anything. I want your advice. On... slander. And my... rights. All of that."

"I'm afraid I am going to need more information, love, if I'm going to be able to give you accurate advice."

His mum's sigh down the phone line was identical to his and he could hear her biro tapping against the paper she kept by the phone, ready to take notes on whatever Dan told her. She had waited patiently, he supposed. Well now she was going to get her reward, though he had no idea what her reaction would be.

"Well, you know how Jones and I," he tried to think of the least embarrassing way to say it and hated the English language for not providing one. "You know how we've been living together?"

"Yes."

"Well... We're friends. We've been friends for a long time. But, somewhere along the way, we sort of..." Dan took a deep breath and fought down the urge to physically hide under his blankets. He was alone in the house and hiding wouldn't stop his mum from hearing this. Beside, he really should have told her before now. It was just so damn embarrassing, saying it to his mother. "... became more than friends? We... I love him, mum."

There was a silence, just for a moment, during which Dan began to panic that his mum, despite being passionate in her fight for equal representation under the law for all, would be disgusted that her own son was in a relationship with a man.

Then he heard, very faintly, a laugh.

"Mum?"

"It's alright, love. Thank you for telling me, you don't know how important it is that I've heard it from you. Thank you, Daniel."

"I'm not gay!"

"Oh?"

"I'm... bisexual?"

"Why are you saying that like it's a question?"

"Dunno," Dan shook his head, looking down at the plaster on his arm, covered in swirls and sketches and lines from songs, all curtesy of Jones. Why did being bi always feel like a question?

"Are you being safe?"

"You mean other than jumping out of windows?"

"Daniel."

"And drinking too much?"

"I don't need to hear all of your secrets, Daniel, I'm not your priest."

"I don't have a priest," Dan answered quickly, but she just tutted at him.

"Are you being safe... with your sex life?" she clarified, sounded only half as embarrassed as Dan felt. He did not want to have this conversation with his mother. He'd rather talk for an hour about his desperate, ever present, desire to drink until he passed out, than talk for even a minute about his sex life.

But if he was direct she wouldn't push it, he knew that from experience. He just had to give her facts and she'd be able to figure out the emotions and motivations behind things from that. Because that was what she did. 'Cos she was his mum and that was her superpower.

"Jones is the only man I've ever had sex with. He is the _only_ person I've had sex with in the last six years. _I_ am the only person he has ever done _anything_ with. Ever. Happy?"

"Not really. Parents don't like having to know about their children's sex lives any more than the children like having it known. But I'm satisfied that you're not going to keel over from an STD, I suppose."

Dan groaned. He never should have called. He should have found some other way to make the whole SugaRape issue go away, but calling his mum for advice had seemed like a really good idea when he'd been trying to convince himself, and Jones, that he'd be fine on his own for the evening and could handle having the details of his personal life put in print.

"Don't groan at me, young man," she told him, and Dan winced at being called young when he felt about a thousand years old. "You called me. You decided to tell me (finally) that you and Jones are a couple. I didn't force it out of you, you wanted my help. And I'm proud of you, Daniel. I love you. And I'm not going to say I don't care about you being bisexual, or that it doesn't matter, because I do care, and it does matter, because it's part of you, it's a lovely part of you. I'm not going to disown you, or write in to one of those trashy magazines and sob to them about my son running off to London and falling into a life of sin... Oh."

The problem with his mum, Dan had long been aware, was her brain's ability to run rather fast. He was still processing the fact that she loved him and loved the fact that he was bisexual and wasn't about to tell him off, and her brain had already jumped ahead. There was a lump in his throat that was making it hard to talk and he carefully maneuvered himself down the bed until he was lying down properly with his face against Jones' pillow. It was stupid, but if he couldn't get a hug, at least he could breath in Jones' scent and let the blankets give him some comfort. And there was no one around to see him acting like such a sad, little, romantic sap, so he could do as he pleased.

"Thanks, mum. Mum?"

"Hmm? Oh, sorry love. I love you. I just- the magazine's written about you and Jones haven't they? Because you resigned."

Dan nodded, which his mum couldn't see but seemed to understand all the same.

"And you weren't ready to tell people?"

"We nearly were. We just... There are pictures."

"Pictures?"

"Of us... please don't make me say it?"

"Oh."

"And they've made it seem like... I coerced him. Because he's younger."

The silence was back but it was a kind of silence Dan knew well. Before he'd met Jones, Dan hadn't known how to describe sound very well. There were loud sounds and soft sounds, music and silence and the sound of voices. But listening to Jones describe the way the world felt and sounded had helped Dan understand quite a few things and he felt like the silence from his mum right now was a thoughtful one, as if she was processing the information she'd been given and was creating a list of actions to take to put the world back in order.

"Mum?"

"Leave it with me, Daniel. I'll see what I can do."

"Are you serious?"

"Don't you scoff at me, young man," she said with such authority that Dan forced the smile from his face and actually looked around the room to make sure she wasn't somehow watching him. "You asked for my advice, and my advice is to leave it with me. I might have to see the article though-"

"No!"

"Oh, Daniel," she scolded. "I might need to see what was written to decide whether it could stand up as libel in court. I wouldn't want to see the pictures. I don't want my first sight of Jones to be that. I'd never get it out of my head."

"Wait," his mum's brain was skipping ahead again. "What do you mean, your first sight of Jones?"

"Yes, I was going to ask you," she responded in a tone that informed Dan that there was going to be no asking involved. "You're turning thirty. You haven't been home in eight years. I know you don't want your mother throwing you a party, but... I'd like to see you and take you out for dinner."

"Right."

Dan knew it was selfish. He knew his father didn't travel well and couldn't manage a trip to London and that his mother wouldn't leave him to come and visit on her own. He knew he probably should have come back for Christmas or something at some point. He'd used Jones as his excuse because he didn't want to leave the kid on his own, especially over the holiday period, and the thought of asking his parents whether his housemate could come along to Christmas, and stay in their house, just hadn't occurred to him.

"And I'd like Jones to come too. It's about time we met him properly. I don't know how we would have coped without him these last few weeks, Daniel. And I hope you haven't been making him cry."

"What?"

"If I have to hear that boy cry one more time because of you I'm going to throttle you."

"Oh, Jesus," Dan cursed, pulling the blankets over his head to hide his blush from the empty room.

"I'll throttle you and call it your birthday present," his mum told him sharply and Dan couldn't tell if she was joking or not.

"Oh, well that's lovely," Dan shot back.

"He was terrified that you wanted to kill yourself!"

"Mum!"

"Grow up, Daniel. I love you but you had better treat that boy well, or Lord help me... As it is, I'll be giving him one hell of a hug when I see him."

"Fine," Dan sighed, knowing when he was beaten (at least when it was his mother doing the beating). "We'll come and visit."

"Good," his mother replied, and he could just about hear her crossing her arms at her victory and smirking. "I'll book your train tickets in the morning. And I will need to see a copy of that article - don't groan! - I'll call Claire and get her to email a copy."

That made Dan smile. He'd been careful not to mention Claire but couldn't resist the smile that crept onto his lips at the idea of her confessing everything and being dressed down good and proper as only their mum could.

"She's staying at Pingu's."

"Pingu? Goodness, what is wrong with young people today? Good night, love. Give Jones a kiss for me when he gets in."

"No."

"Terrible boy," she scolded him affectionately. "I'll call you as soon as I can. Sleep well."

"Bye, mum. Thanks."

He ended the call and pushed the phone onto the bedside table without emerging from his blanket cave. He did feel better having talked to her. She was good like that - organised and straight forward - she didn't have time for nonsense or idiots.

And she liked Jones.

Which was something worth smiling about.


	14. Chapter 14

Claire heaved a tired sigh and stretched her neck, it had been a really, really long day. She'd been tempted to call Leta and cancel but knew she'd just be miserable with herself if she did. She'd always prided herself on being compassionate and hardworking and reliable. She had been the sort of girl that teachers called 'Mature beyond her years' and she liked being that girl. That girl got praise, and responsibility. That girl had been trusted with their parents car, even when her older brother wasn't.

Dan had hated that. She'd been seventeen and had a set of keys to the car while he, at nearly twenty, still needed to get lifts to parties. Then, of course, he'd gone off to London to finish his degree there, and Claire didn't see him properly for years. By the time she'd made it London, keen to begin work as a documentary maker, tackling the hard issues hitting the capitol, she'd hardly recognised her brother. He had used to look gangly and pale, nervous and twitchy. Now he had mad hair and a bit of a beer belly. He still acted the same, mostly, being too protective when she didn't want him to be and an insensitive jerk when she actually needed someone to talk to.

They'd avoided each other mostly. It was a big city and they lived in very different areas - until Claire lost her funding, and her flat. She was ready to pack it all in when her mum called to inform her that she'd spoken to Dan's housemate and that Claire could stay there until she was back on her feet, as long as she remembered to be polite and mind her own business.

It'd been a bit strange truth be told, and when she'd met Jones she hadn't been able to imagine her mum chatting to him about anything but he'd been friendly enough, and she'd been grateful.

But she couldn't deny that things felt like they were slipping away from her a bit. She felt that, somewhere along the way, she'd lost the girl who was always on time and eager to help others and had instead become just another London twat. No one was interested in her documentary because it wasn't funny or edgy, it didn't have drama or X-factor appeal. It was just a film about people trying to help themselves and one another. She'd wanted to show people a side of London that they didn't know, but it turned out she didn't know much either.

"You still with us? Or have you wandered back to Bradford?"

The voice next to her made her jump and Claire looked up sheepishly before going back to serving soup to the queue of hungry people in front of her.

"Sorry."

Leta shook her head, half mocking Claire for her daydreaming and half in recognition of her tendency to worry. She put down the last tray of bread rolls she'd brought out from the kitchen and both women surveyed the small group of individuals currently making use of the soup kitchen. It had always struck her as horribly depressing - gray clothes and a grayer smell and just... _sad_ - but she'd never actually pictured someone she knew among that group.

"Listen," Claire said, trying to sound casual, though from Leta's eyebrow she knew she was failing. "You've worked here a long time. You wouldn't happen to remember... someone who might have come here in 1995 or 96? His name's Jones now, but it might have been Tom back then. He would have been around sixteen and-"

"Are you really asking me if I remember a kid who may or may not have come to this shelter over seven years ago? You serious?"

Claire slumped. She served the last man in the line and let her soup ladle fall into the pot with a clang and immediately regretted it when her apron, shirt and arms were splattered with a fine spray of soup. Now she was going to smell of carrot and coriander for the rest of the night. At least she could go back to Pingu's and know she'd get a decent shower without people interrupting to use the loo or to look for an important piece of electrical equipment they might have left _in the bath! _

She tried to pull herself together, to seem less like she was about to just collapse in a sobbing puddle in front of Leta because the director of the Inner South Soup Kitchen was not the sort of woman to put up with that sort of thing. She was a lovely woman but she'd gone from being homeless with three young kids and limited English, to being the owner of a successful small business and head of one of the best soup kitchens in the city.

When Claire had approached her about wanting to learn more about London's homeless for her film, Leta had put her to work instead, and it had been an education. She was a hard but fair taskmaster but she wasn't the coddling sort.

"Kind of serious, yeah," Claire mumbled as she picked up the soup pot and walked out to the kitchen to begin the washing up.

"Oh, Claire-bear," Leta chuckled, following with the other pots and empty trays. "You got another project you're trying to redeem? You can't fix everyone, you know that? And not everyone's going to see the world your way."

"I know, I know. It's just," Claire filled the sink and glared at the bubbles like they could give her the words she needed to tell the story without getting herself into more trouble. "It's my housemate actually. He was homeless and..."

"And you want to know why he never told you about it?" Claire looked up, but Leta gave her a wide grin that showed the gaps in her teeth and that seemed to see everything Claire was trying to hide. "You don't need to tell me, I know that look. But Claire, these are people, not sympathy cards you can drag out to teach other people to be better humans. Most folks who've been homeless don't advertise it. They'd rather forget it. They're ashamed of it. And a sixteen-year-old kid? Well, I'd be surprised if he'd come through it without a few nightmares."

"But I want to help."

Leta raised an eyebrow but Claire stood her ground. She'd been practicing Leta's fierce look and she really did want to help.

"This housemate... he the noisy one you threw a shoe at a few weeks ago?"

Claire grimaced. Leta never forgot anything. She hadn't scolded Claire at the time, she'd just stored the information away until she could use it to best effect. She would probably get along brilliantly with her mum, Claire thought, they'd trade stories on Claire's misadventures and make her feel like she was five-years-old again. But Leta did have a point.

"Maybe."

"You sure you want to help? Or d'you just feel bad for not liking him much?"

Talking with Leta was like losing in a knife fight sometimes and Claire needed to take a deep breath before she continued. Leta was good at telling the truth, and the truth really hurt.

"I do want to help."

"Good. Then leave him alone. I don't know who he is but those kids go through too much, see too much. You want to help? Don't push. Don't press those buttons. It might satisfy your curiosity but it'll just be painful for him. And don't get mad when he doesn't trust you. Often they don't trust anybody for a long time."

"He trusts my brother."

"Really? The 'misanthropic, sarcastic, writer' brother?"

"Yeah."

"Well good. Leave your brother to it. Scabs don't heal if you pick at them... And pots don't get clean if you just stand there like a rag doll instead of scrubbing."

Claire laughed and set to cleaning the pots while Leta went back out to do the rounds of catching up with the regulars and greeting the newcomers. She was the sort of woman Claire wanted to grow up to be but she didn't think she was doing a great job getting there.

It was good advice though. She'd messed up horribly with Dan and Jones, in a lot of ways, and every time she tried to be the mature, adult one she ended up just arguing and making things worse. And even if Dan and Jones were strange and annoying and ignored everyone but at each other, at least she knew that they _had_ each other and weren't just isolating themselves. And it seemed now that they had reasons for being insular, reasons that were none of her business.

She still had to make it up to them, though. She didn't know how, but it needed to be done. Then they could get the whole horrible mess sorted and forgotten and move on with their lives and-

Her phone began to ring, an obnoxious tone that Nathan had set on there and she hadn't been bothered to get rid of yet. Wiping her hands she dug the phone out of her back pocket, thinking it was probably Toby calling again to ask her if she was alright, or maybe Pingu (which made her blush, because who would have thought Pingu could be like _that_ in bed) then nearly dropped the thing when she saw the caller ID: _MUM_.

"Shit," she whispered, her thumb hovering over the call button. Maybe her mum didn't know anything about the article yet, maybe this was just a random call - there had been more of those in the last couple of weeks - but there was only one way to find out. "Hi, mum..."

"Hello love, I've just been on the phone to your brother, and-"

"Shit."

"Well you could say that..."


	15. Chapter 15

"... And then it turns out she didn't even know that it'd been me who leaked the pictures and gave Jonatton information about how they're sleeping together and I just went and put my stupid, big foot in it! I mean, Dan didn't tell her! Can you believe that?! As if Dan wouldn't drop me in it if he had the chance. He's been trying to get me in trouble with our parents for years - for my entire life! - and now, when he has the perfect opportunity, he doesn't? Does that make any sense? Maybe he hit his head harder than they thought when he jumped out of that bloody window."

Pingu winced. He didn't really like people mentioning the window incident, but for a while it had been all anyone would talk about. Mostly they were talking about Dan, but it still made him nervous. He'd jumped out of that window twice and both times he'd thought he was going to die. It hadn't stopped him though, and he hated that he was such a coward that he'd rather fling himself out of a second floor window than face a real, dangerous situation.

He felt guilty too, because he'd broken his thumbs and nothing else the first time and done absolutely zero damage the second time, whereas Dan had gotten seriously hurt. And he wouldn't have followed Pingu out of the window at all if he hadn't seen him sitting on top of that van and thought he'd be fine as well. It was such a mess, and it made him nervous.

Then again, most things made Pingu nervous. Things like Claire Ashcroft pacing around his lounge room in nothing but her (quite small actually and with a tiny bow stitched on the front) underpants and a t-shirt she'd borrowed from his clean washing pile that was actually very tight on her, because she'd got out of the shower and realised that she didn't have any clean clothes left. Her hair was wet and dripping down her back a bit, making the t-shirt damp so that it stuck to her back and made the curve between her ribs and her backside more prominent. Things like that made Pingu very nervous indeed.

Claire was a very attractive person, even if most of the time she dressed like a woman much older and a few sizes bigger, she was considered massively hot by just about every man who met her, Pingu included. She was like the most perfectly rendered female action hero, like Wonderwoman or Lara Croft, but real.

He still couldn't quite process that they'd had sex earlier in the day, even though his bedroom smelt of it and his body had been shaky and tired for most of the evening because of it. It had been hard work, not being able to use his hands properly, but he'd tried to ensure that she had a good time, and didn't feel like he was just trying to get off with someone for the sake of getting off. He'd been told once that the important things to remember in sex were to make sure that the woman was properly prepared, that he never seemed like he was rushing her, that she had a minimum of two orgasms, and that he listened to all directions, especially when they were things like 'slow down', 'stop', and 'a little to the left'.

He'd memorised those directions but hadn't had much chance to practice and he'd been a bit nervous that he'd finish too soon or that Claire would decide halfway through that he was rubbish, but she hadn't and it'd been really nice, and she'd kissed him afterwards, and snuggled against him for ten whole minutes, which had never happened with anyone before. He wondered whether it would happen again, or whether it'd been a one off that he shouldn't talk about, but realised that right now he was supposed to be listening and wasn't doing a very good job of it.

"...I mean, he told our parents I was smoking pot when I was twelve just to see me get upset, knowing that they'd never take it seriously and that it was a lie, and now suddenly he's acting like, what? a martyr or something? He's just so frustrating! Don't you think?"

"Uh... yes? Yeah, definitely," Pingu stuttered and tried not to cringe when Claire narrowed her eyes at him.

"You don't have many opinions, do you, Harry?" she asked, crossing her arms.

"I do," Pingu nodded quietly, "just not about people, mostly. Usually just about, you know, video games and graphics and stuff."

He tried to look at her face and not at the exposed strip of skin where the t-shirt had ridden up when she crossed her arms. Claire had a nice stomach. Smooth and a bit round but firm too and when she stood like that he could see her hip bones, just peeking out. And her thighs, they were good. Strong and round and not as pale as he'd been expecting. He liked that her body was strong, but it made him feel a bit skinny in comparison. Maybe when his hands were better he'd try doing some exercise or something.

"Harry? Harry? Pingu!" Claire yelled and Pingu jumped and looked down at his socks so that he didn't get told off for staring at Claire's skin. It was distracting.

"Sorry. Yes, I think Dan's acting different. Maybe he's trying to be... better?"

Claire sighed and flopped down onto the sofa beside him.

"Maybe," she agreed. "Or maybe he just wanted me to dob myself in."

Pingu gave a little laugh and tried to hide it behind his hand but felt his breath catch in his throat when Claire leaned in and gently moved his hand away. She lifted it to her lips and Pingu watched, his mind blank and his breath still stuck, as she kissed his fingers with a tenderness he'd never had directed at him before. She gave him a look he didn't quite understand, then lowered his hand to her thigh, holding it there for several seconds before she started talking again, a little more softly than before.

"Now my mum wants a copy of the article so that she can 'see what she can do'. I swear that's her favourite thing to say. But how do I send her the article without her seeing the photos?"

"I can do that," Pingu spoke up, trying to sound more like a useful adult and less like a strangled puppy but then ruined it when Claire smiled at him and he made a weird squeaking noise, like a chew toy being stepped on.

"I knew there was a reason I kept you around," she said, with a warmth in her voice that Pingu wasn't sure he could really handle. "Well, that and, you know, other reasons too."

"Oh."

"Yeah. Mum also asked me if I had a boyfriend."

Claire was smiling but Pingu still felt himself begin to panic. It felt like someone was pressing against his sternum, like at school when he'd fall and one of the bigger boys would put a foot in the centre of his chest and press down until he started to cry from not being able to breathe properly. No one was pressing now but the pain was just as real, hurting all the way through his ribs and into his spine.

"Oh."

Claire huffed a breath through her nose but she was still smiling.

"I said yes," she said, resting her hand over Pingu's, which was still resting on her thigh. "I told her his name is Harry and he's an animator."

"Oh," Pingu said again, even though he knew that it was probably annoying. He looked down at his hand, and how close it was to those really quite ridiculously small pink underpants, and how soft and warm Claire's skin was, and how she seemed actually very happy to have his hand there. "That's me."

Claire's laugh was so sudden and loud it made him jump but instead of hitting him or something, which he'd been expecting, she kissed him instead.

"Of course it's you, you idiot," she told him, pressing soft kisses to his lips and pressing her hands against his thighs in a way that made Pingu's body respond a bit too quickly.

"I just didn't want to... assume?" he breathed, closing his eyes tightly as Claire began to kiss along his jaw like he was exactly what she wanted even though that seemed absurd.

"Yeah, well," Claire responded, pressing her lips to his ear. "Help me get that email off to my mum and we'll head back to the bedroom and I'll show you a trick I know."

"Oh, wow!" Pingu gasped as Claire pressed against him. He could feel the softness of her breasts and the hard bumps of her nipples and he tried to steady his breathing so that he didn't do anything embarrassing. "Thank you."

"Don't say thank you, Harry," Claire laughed. "Just kiss me for a bit. Then go work your computer magic, and then... we'll have sex."

"Wow," Pingu whispered again, but Claire gave him another one of those looks that meant he should shut up. So he did, and did what he was told instead.


	16. Chapter 16

The glowing red digits flashed from 12:34 to 12:35 and Dan tried to pretend that it didn't matter. His body wanted to sleep so desperately that his head kept lolling forward and jolting him awake. His body was tired, it was just his brain that wasn't cooperating.

"Jones?"

It was just a mumble, his body's reaction to the need for sleep versus the need for Jones - his music or his presence - to switch his brain off, but he couldn't stop worrying. Back before midnight, Jones had said, so where was he?

If he was realistic, Jones would have had to really rush to be home by midnight. His set finished at 11:45 and the club was a ten minute walk from their house, _and_ Jones would be dragging his stuff. Really Dan had expected him home around quarter past, but that was twenty minutes ago, and even though he knew there was probably a perfectly good reason for Jones to be somewhere other than in bed beside him, his brain just wouldn't stop coming up with all the possible disasters which could have befallen him. He desperately wanted a drink but there was nothing in the house, which was for the best, he knew, but still incredibly frustrating.

_Claire and Jones had taken perverse delight in searching the house for every single, hidden bottle - like some sort of ridiculous game of hide-and-seek - and pouring it all down the drain. Dan had railed at them from his place on the sofa, fresh out of hospital and unable to move to stop them, and Claire had lectured him about what he was doing to his body and how embarrassing he got when he was drunk: dancing like a dad at a disco and falling asleep in paint. Jones had grinned like a madman as Dan cringed in embarrassment, mortified that anyone, especially his sister, actually remembered the way he acted when under the influence of his favourite poison. _

_He'd wanted to be furious - unspeakably angry, stoic and silent in his spleen - but Jones had been blowing kisses at his vodka as it gurgled down the plug hole and waving to it like he waved at babies, all waggling fingers and big, round eyes and Dan had laughed in spite of himself. _

_Claire had called him mental and informed him that while he was out of it in the hospital she'd sold his television to pay his video club debt, but Dan couldn't make himself care. He never watched the damned thing because he could never hear it over Jones' noise, and when Jones wasn't making noise at his decks he was usually forcing noises out of Dan, either on the couch or in their bed (or on the kitchen counter, or the shower, or that one time leaning up against the front door so that it couldn't be opened in case Claire came home early). He was fairly certain that his T.V. wouldn't have cleared the debt anyway, but she hadn't bothered him about it since, and he hadn't asked, which suited him just fine._

Dan closed his eyes tight, scrunching his whole face and then releasing it and widening his eyes to try and clear the headache building in his skull. Watching Jones dispose of his vodka, rum, schnapps, whiskey, port, beer, and tequila had been both upsetting and funny, but Jones had made it worth his while later, covering him in delicate kisses and giving him a back massage that had put him to sleep the way that only alcohol or Jones' music could usually do, but now he was on his own and making himself nauseous with worry because he was almost sure Jones would be fine, but not completely sure, and the only way he would be able to get any sleep right now would be through serious alcohol consumption.

Instead, sitting on the bedside where his trusty bottle of vodka should have been was fucking SugaRape, the magazine that had come so close to destroying his mind and life and the little faith he still had that humans were actually evolving rather than going backwards into monkeydom. His mobile phone was there too, making occasional, sick sounding beeps as it tried to tell him that yet another idiot had read what Jonatton had written about him and that they had an opinion on it. And Jones was out there somewhere, surrounded by the idiots with nothing to protect himself except a crate of broken kids' toys and some trashed records.

Dan checked the clock again then forced his eyes closed. The not knowing was driving him insane.

Jones' usual crowd weren't SugaRape's target audience - they weren't interested in Brit Pop and tits like Barley with his sad, bastardized excuse for music, and probably saw Jones' forced outing as the final reason to hate the magazine and everyone who read it, but that didn't mean that Jones might not have to deal with people recognising him and wanting to make trouble.

Or simply the fact that anyone who had seen the article had also seen basically all of Jones' body. Without his permission. And that had really put Jones on edge. Dan would be the first to admit that Jones had a body that could make mouths water (in the privacy of his own head, to himself) but he also knew that Jones was actually quite shy about the way he looked. He used layers and strange fabrics and bright accessories to draw attention away from a body that Dan thought of as 'lithe' rather than skinny these days, and the only time he really wasn't self-conscious was when he got carried away in his music. Or when they were having sex.

Dan had seen Jones working the decks down at H8NuPx a couple of times, and was well aware that Jones had a small, but intense, following, and that he had a hypnotic affect on people watching him in all his aneurism-inducing-noise glory. He toned himself down a lot when working at Stanley Knives, doing background noise at low volume and using the time to work on new ideas and beats, but when he let loose at H8, known for as _the_ place for Happy Hardcore in London, he created something that was difficult to describe. It was loud and a bit frightening but full of life and innocence and joy as well. Like Jones himself.

And the people there were fairly protective of Jones. His boss, who'd taken over the place four years ago, knew Jones' full name, age and backstory and had taken it in his stride, respecting the odd boy who managed to make people love him without even trying. He'd seen Jones with Dan and made approving nods, and generally treated Jones like he would a nephew, quietly protective and ever watchful. Most of the time Dan found it a bit creepy, but tonight he tried to reassure himself that there was someone watching out for Jones when he couldn't.

He took a few deep breaths, telling himself again that Jones would be fine, even if it was now 12:39, then a banging began on the door and he jumped so badly his leg began throbbing like he'd hit it with a hammer.

"What the fucking... who's there?" he yelled in his most Northern, intimidating voice. "What d'you want?"

"Dan? Ashcroft? It's, like, Rufus-"

"And Ned!"

"Yeah, from work?"

_"__Fuck off!" _

He did not need this. He had been very careful in ensuring that no one he worked with knew his address. Jonatton had only found it out by following Claire home from the hospital and then the bastard had gone and published the fact that he lived in "The House of Jones" on Wellington Row and now the two Princes of Idiocy had found him.

"But we've got your boyfriend."

"What?"

Dan was out of bed and down the hallway so fast he barely realised that his leg was screaming at him. He didn't normally move this fast _without_ broken bones and he suddenly thought that he should probably slow down before he did extra damage to his healing tibia. Then he heard Jones.

"Dan, don't move! Don't get out of bed, I'm fine. I just need to get my key out of my pocket - oi, fuck off, Glasses!"

"I was only trying to help," Dan heard Ned's whiny protest and smiled at the fact that he sounded a bit scared.

"Yeah, well nobody sticks their hand in my pockets without my permission, right? So back off!"

Dan limped the rest of the way down the hall and opened the front door with a look on his face that was probably a bit too much like his dad's. He was going to say something stupid, like 'What sort of time do you call this, then?' but it died in his throat when he saw Jones' face.

"I said make _them_ bleed, not you, you idiot!"

Jones face was smeared with blood, most of it dry, but there was still a trickle moving sluggishly from his nostril to his lip. There was a bruise forming along the bridge between his eyes and his make-up was badly smudged but he looked more angry than upset.

"You should have seen what he did to the butt-munch who tried it on, though," Ned piped up with a grin, staring at him like a fucking fool in his stupid, fake glasses. He still looked terrified and was fidgeting with his phone and when Dan glared in his direction he nearly dropped it and had to fumble about as he apologised. "Oh, shit! sorry. Is butt-munch like, homophobic to you guys?"

Jones heaved a sigh that Dan recognised as the result of having to spend an extended period of time in the company of Ned and Rufus and motioned for Rufus to take his stuff up the steps and into the hall.

"I told 'em, Dan," he said, and sounded suddenly so tired and wobbly, Dan actually worried he'd start crying in the street. "No point in not. They'd just seen me nutting a guy for trying it on after the show, and they helped me get my stuff home, so..."

Rufus placed the crates next to Dan before scurrying back out into the street like a rat and Dan desperately wanted to kick him.

"I didn't believe what Jonatton wrote," Rufus told him when he was safely standing behind Ned and out of kicking range. "Even if you guys are like... an item... I told everyone the photos are fakes."

"Yeah," Ned nodded squinting in the dim light and trying to edge back behind Rufus. "And I told 'em that there's nothing wrong with wanting to kiss blokes if that's what you're into, 'cos it's the naughties, isn't it."

"Is it?" Dan said in the usual, sharp tone he used when restraining himself from telling people exactly what he thought of them, and focused instead on the way Jones was holding his arm close to his side.

"Yeah?" Ned said nervously, mentally checking and rechecking the year. "It's 2003, Dan. I'm like, 98% positive about that, uh..."

Dan wanted to yell at them to go away but they had just helped Jones home which probably meant he had to be at least civil. And they weren't laughing at him either, which was an unexpected bonus.

"Look, thanks for helping Jones home, I'm sure he's very grateful but-"

"Yeah," Jones interrupted, giving Dan a look that meant he should shut the fuck up for a bit. "Thanks. But don't let me stop you, right? It's only gone twelve an' the night's young. And think about what I said, yeah? Viva la Revolution, and all that. Night."

Rufus and Ned were nodding like a pair of annoying desktop toys and didn't seem to be making a move to go anywhere but Jones just walked up the steps, gave them a wave and shut the door, his easy grin dropping as he slid down the wall to sit sprawled out on the floor.

"I dunno how you put up with them, Dan," he whispered, like he'd just woken up from a bad dream. "I know they're, like, technically smarter than me, cos they finished school and have proper jobs and all, but, fuck they're hard work."  
>Dan chuckled. He wanted to sit down beside him but knew it'd be more hassle than it was worth and that he wouldn't be able to get back up again afterwards. Besides which, in the slightly brighter inside light, he could see that Jones' nose wasn't the only thing that needed cleaning and bandaging.<p>

"Get up. We need to get you cleaned up. I get to play nurse this time."

"Ooh."

"Shut up."

Jones let out a giggle but instead of being reassured, Dan began to worry more. He used his good arm to heave Jones back onto his feet and practically dragged him to the couch. Jones didn't speak when ordered to sit and not move and stayed still and silent while Dan fetched the first aid kit (restocked since Dan's accident) and sat down beside him. It wasn't a good sign.

He started by cleaning Jones' face, hoping to get a glimpse of how the younger man felt by looking in his eyes, but Jones kept them shut as Dan wiped away the dried blood and dabbed at the area with antiseptic lotion. He winced a bit when Dan's fingers poked him but there was none of his usual fidgeting and Dan was getting more and more concerned about his lack of response.

When Jones' face was clean Dan moved to take off the grimy t-shirt but the movement made Jones flinch and his arms flailed, hitting Dan's broken arm and making him cry out.

"Oh fuck, Dan! I'm sorry!" Jones said, his eyes flying open as Dan tried to bite back the curses that he wanted to fling because, while they might make him feel better, he knew that Jones would take them the wrong way and think they were aimed at him, and not just at the world at large.

"It's alright," he said through gritted teeth. "It's my own fault, trying to touch the most ticklish man in all of England without sending up a warning flare first."

Jones smiled, quick but brilliant, a thank you for not using his skittishness to start an argument.

"That is true," he said in mock seriousness. "You know the rules, Mr Ashcroft, what's your excuse?"

Part of Dan wanted to play along, to be silly and naughty and laugh and let Jones win, but part of him... part of him was so tired his face hurt. He just wanted to clean Jones' scrapes and see for himself that the boy was safe, and then, hopefully, finally, sleep.

"I was trying to get your top off," he growled, hoping that if he made it seem sexy Jones would play along.

"It's fine."

Dan frowned. Jones wasn't usually this brusque but he didn't usually come home with a bloody nose either, after spending the day worrying because his personal life had been flayed and laid out in a trashy magazine. Dan tried for calm.

"No, but-"

"It's fine."

"I think it's not. I think you're hurt."

"Fuck off, Dan."

Jones darted away, getting to his feet and drifting, as he always did, toward his precious decks. There were missing parts and gaps where toys usually sat, all still in the crates and needing to be unpacked, but that could wait until morning. He watched as Jones ran his hand across his equipment, so loving and careful, the movement at odds with the chipped black nail paint and studded wrist band he wore.

For a moment Dan thought Jones meant to go behind them and start up his music and decided that at least that way he might get some sleep but Jones moved past the desk, slowly, and went into the kitchen instead.

"Jones," he called, trying to sound firm but only sounding old to his own ears. "We're out of coffee, Jones."

He winced at the sound of a tin being hurled at the wall and a mug and spoon hitting the sink with enough force that he heard porcelain shatter, but decided to let Jones have his tantrum in private.

He maneuvered himself down onto the sofa, trying to ignore the dull, constant pain in his arm and leg and closed his eyes. Jones was kicking the cupboards, picking up the empty coffee tin and hurling it, over and over, and generally making noise, and even though it was an angry and hurting kind of music, it was music, and Jones was home.

And Dan slept.


	17. Chapter 17

**Dan slept:**

* * *

><p><em>Dan looked at his plate and then back up at Jones' pale, nervous face. They didn't usually go out for dinner, it wasn't really their thing, and it cost money, but it was Jones' birthday, so they'd decided to make the effort. Now Dan thought they probably would have been better off just getting a take-out like usual. <em>

_Jones was twitching in his seat - feet tapping, knees jiggling, fingers drumming, tongue flicking out to lick the corner of his mouth, eyes darting about - the complete works. This went far beyond normal fidgeting. Even his general desire to be quiet about their relationship didn't cover this. Dan hated talking about feelings but this was one of those times when it was probably necessary. If he didn't do something soon Jones was going to knock the table over and Dan was actually quite enjoying his spaghetti bolognese and didn't want it to end up on the floor. _

_"__So..." Jones looked up, realised he'd made eye contact, and looked down again, his cheeks going from deathly pale to bright, fever red so fast that Dan wondered for a moment if he was actually just feeling unwell. "What's the problem?"_

_Jones looked pained and pushed his meatballs around the plate like he was playing a strange game of pasta hockey_

_"__Well," his voice cracked and his blush flared brighter, spreading out to cover his face. "It's my birthday..."_

_Dan huffed a sigh, Jones wasn't going to make this easy, that much was obvious._

_"__And?"_

_"__And I'm nineteen, and..." _

_Jones spoke like he was biting off each piece of the sentence before it could escape and Dan was finding it hard to be patient. He wanted to lean across the table and just kiss the worry off the silly man's face but even without Jones' fear of being Out, and Dan's fear of public intimacy, it just wasn't done. Maybe he should've taken Jones to Soho for the evening, where nobody gave a fuck and two white boys kissing was probably the least seedy thing going down, but he hadn't, which meant that they'd just have to talk it out in low voices like proper, repressed, little British men._

_"__And..."_

_"__And... and I kind of promised myself that I'd, you know, do... the thing... the... you know... the... sex..."_

_Dan could see how much it was killing Jones to admit this. They'd done a lot over the last seven months since 'The Kiss' as Jones always called it, in an awed whisper, but Dan hadn't pushed anything. Because really, when it came to having sex with a man, Dan was just as much of a novice. But as uncomfortable as it all was, he couldn't help the chuckle that was building up inside him._

_"__The sex?"_

_"__Shut up," Jones hissed, stabbing a meatball viciously with his fork. "You know what I mean."_

_"__I have absolutely no idea what you mean," Dan replied, letting the grin creep onto his face. Jones always told him that it was he 'wolf smile' because it was a bit scary but exciting too, and he watched as Jones began to squirm in his seat in a decidedly different manner. _

_"__Dan..."_

_"__No, it's true. I'm clueless. What is 'The Sex'? Is it a new game you kids are playing?"_

_Jones smiled wide, his eyes closing tight as he attempted to keep the laughter from exploding out and frightening the other diners in the restaurant. His head dipped and his shoulders began to shake and Dan felt his own grin stretch, feeling a ridiculous pride at being able to make the boy laugh._

_"__Shut up, old man," he giggled through his clenched jaw. "Don't make me clobber you."_

_"__Is that how 'The Sex' is played, is it?"_

_"__Dan!"_

_Jones snorted and hid his face in his hands as the laugher began to escape. It took several minutes for him to get himself under control, during which Dan ate as much of his pasta as he could fit in his mouth. If Jones decided to freak out in a minute he wanted to get his moneys worth. It wasn't every day that they splashed out and actually ate meat. _

_Jones finally recovered himself, taking a deep breath and blowing it out carefully before shoveling a forkful of pasta and meatball into his mouth to cover his remaining embarrassment._

_"__You ok now?"_

_"__Yeah. Fine," Jones mumbled around his dinner, still a shade of red that made Dan feel strangely protective._

_"__Good, fine. So... sex. That's fine too," he said, trying to said sensible and mature when all he wanted to do was have a fit of giggling hysterics and hide under the table. "What's the problem?"_

_Jones' smile disappeared like a chalk drawing wiped off a black board._

_"__You'll think I'm an idiot."_

_"__I never think you're an idiot," Dan replied, feeling a sudden, desperate urge to make sure that Jones understood. "Dense and oblivious and mad as a hatter, but not an idiot."_

_"__Oh, thanks," Jones mumbled, sipping delicately on his coke before a frown struck his features. "I think."_

_Dan's chuckled again. _

_"__I'm not going to think you're an idiot, whatever you do. What's the sex issue?"_

_Jones cringed and Dan laughed into his bolognese._

_"__Shit, Dan, you sound like a parent."_

_"__Don't say that," Dan grinned. "I'm not going to put up with you calling me daddy in bed or any of that nonsense." _

_Jones' blush was back and he'd pursed his lips in a way that made it very hard for Dan to imagine anything other than how he'd love to kiss those lips open again._

_"__You're so fucking embarrassing," he whispered without looking up._

_"__That's the rules, I'm afraid," Dan continued, enjoying how easy it was to wind Jones up when there was nothing he could do to escape. "If we're going to do this then you have to know that we'll be doing it on a formal, surname basis."_

_Jones snorted again, grinning so hard that he looked like it might actually hurt._

_"__Oh, Mr Ashcroft!" he said in a voice that was supposed to be silly but just made Dan start to squirm and need to cross his legs. _

_"__Shut it..." he said, feeling himself begin to flush, which only made Jones start giggling. "I said, shut it. We're in a restaurant. Mr Jones."_

_Jones was giggling so hard now that he was clutching his arms and hugging himself as he tried to be quiet and it filled Dan with the warm and fuzzy, but slightly frightening, feeling that he'd learned to recognise as his love for Jones. He pushed the boy's glass closer to him and after a few careful gulps Jones had himself back in control but seemed nervous about continuing the conversation._

_"__Sex," he whispered, and Dan took a deep breath to stop himself from being the one to laugh._

_"__Yes. Is it... is there something you'd..." Dan sighed, he could make Jones laugh but sincerity was not his strong suit. _

_"__It's nothing like that," Jones shook his head hurriedly. "Nothing... kinky," he whispered. "It's just... I wanna have sex, but I'm... scared."_

_"__Oh." _

_"__That it'll hurt." _

_"__Oh." Dan hadn't actually been expecting that. _

_When Jones closed his eyes now it wasn't from laughter. He could almost feel the shame radiating off the young man and it hurt that he couldn't just pull him into his lap for a hug like he so obviously needed. Dan didn't know a lot about Jones' life before they'd met - he didn't push for information and Jones didn't offer much - but he'd seen the state of Jones' home when they'd first moved in, and noticed how quickly Jones could freeze up when touched unexpectedly. Dan had a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing and he knew how to read clues. He should have guessed that Jones would be scared of sex, but had no idea how to help._

_"__We should do it anyway," Jones mumbled, back to looking pale and pushing the last of his dinner around the plate until it looked vaguely like a frowny face. "I mean, I'm probably just being stupid. I am stupid and, and..."_

_Dan looked around quickly before moving his hand across the table to grasp Jones' fingers in a firm grip. _

_"__Is this what you've been worried about?" he asked, trying to sound gentle but worried that he just sounded sleepy. "Is this why you've been white as milk all evening and twitching like a rabbit?"_

_"__I just don't want... to disappoint you? And I wanna do it but... I'm really scared."_

_He sounded too young, and it made Dan uncomfortable but he couldn't push Jones away. This was too important._

_"__Jones," he said, trying to keep his voice low but wanting the younger man to look at him properly. "You don't have to be scared. We don't need to do anything more than we're doing now."_

_At that Jones did look up and Dan could see the confusion in his pale eyes. _

_"__But what about... sex?"_

_"__What about it? What we do is sex," Dan told him, trying to sound more confident than he felt, for Jones' sake. "We get each other off, we have fun. You don't have to go sticking anything up anywhere you don't want to."_

_Jones scrunched his nose at that and Dan had to laugh because no matter what horrors Jones had witnessed, he never managed to lose the innocence that made him so undeniably lovable._

_"__Besides," Dan went on, leaning in and waggling his eyebrows for extra effect. "What makes you think that just because I'm older and bigger and hairier than you that I might not want to be... the one underneath?"_

_Jones' blush was back, starting at his neck and spreading so fast up his face to his hairline that Dan could see it moving, brighter than the red streaks in his hair. Jones eyes were comically wide, like a stunned cartoon character, and he'd stopped fidgeting completely._

_Dan shoved the last of his spaghetti into his mouth and went to pay the bill before Jones had a chance to recover. They were going to do this and hew as going to show Jones that they were ok and that there was no need to be afraid. Because they loved each other and because he trusted Jones._

_Now he just had to calm his own nerves. He was certainly in for a night he wouldn't forget._


	18. Chapter 18

**_Warning: Serious adult content ahead. Don't read, it's not actually necessary to the plot, it's just the second half of the flashback from the last chapter._**

* * *

><p><em>They'd all but run down the street to get home, pulling one another and holding coats if not hands, and Dan barely had the door shut and locked before Jones was kissing him. They were short, furious kisses that didn't give Dan a chance for breath or recovery. Jones' hands were sliding up his chest, pulling and tugging at his shirt but not actually unbuttoning it, and Dan felt the giddy, frightened laughter surfacing again.<em>

_He grabbed Jones' arse, which made him moan so wantonly that Dan felt, just for a second, that he understood the younger man's obsession with sound, as it echoed into his own mouth. Jones jumped, letting Dan take his weight and carry him to the bedroom, Jones' bedroom, though they both used it now and Dan's had been turned into a storage space._

_Dan usually complained about carrying Jones to the bedroom like some sort of pointy featured bride. Never that Jones was too heavy - he'd seen the kid go for two days without out food or sleep and it had been the most stressful two days of Dan's life - he didn't want to give Jones any reason to think he needed to diet. No, he just found it awkward and a bit embarrassing, like they were in some sort of terrible Romantic Comedy and there were secretly cameras hidden around the house. People in real life didn't do this sort of thing, surely._

_Except that they were, and they'd reached the bed, and Jones was lowering himself carefully onto the mattress while still trying to continue the kiss, and Dan couldn't make himself let go of the skinny, strange, beautiful young man in his arms._

_"__Dan," Jones gasped as he began kissing down Dan's neck and hurriedly undoing buttons and belts. "I just thought you should know that I-"_

_He gave up on words as he finally freed Dan of his shirt and latched his mouth onto Dan's nipple instead. Dan heard himself moan, though it didn't sound like his voice - it never did - and was caught between wanting Jones to continue the beautiful torture and wanting to find out what Jones thought he should know. He let the licking and sucking continue for a whole minute before it became too much and he almost yelled in his frustration and need._

_"__What?"_

_Jones got such a shock he bit Dan's nipple just a little too hard and pulled his mouth away with a wet pop._

_"__What?"_

_"__What'd'you want me to know?" Dan said in a rush, his body trembling in the aftermath of the bite._

_"__Oh," Jones breathed. His lips were red and wet and so swollen Dan had to hold himself back from kissing him or he'd never hear what Jones wanted to say. "I, um... I went to the chemist and um... I got... stuff."_

_He scrambled away across the bed and without the heat of his narrow chest Dan fell to the mattress, his whole body beating the time of his pulse. Jones returned a moment later and took the opportunity to straddle his back, laughing playfully and kissing down Dan's spine but all Dan could think about was the hard press of Jones' cock against his arse, terrifying and exciting._

_And then Jones dropped the 'stuff' onto the bed and Dan took a long, hard look at the box of condoms and bottle of lube. He kept waiting for the rest of the fear to kick in, but it didn't arrive. Instead he just felt even more blood pulse into his cock, pushing it against the fly of his jeans until there was no room for fear or worry or anything other than the aching need between his legs._

_He reached around and grabbed Jones' arse, pushing the younger man's erection even more firmly against him until Jones let out a whimper. _

_"__Are you sure?" he whispered, his voice cracked and breathy._

_"__Fuck, yes," Dan grunted, releasing Jones so that he could get his jeans off and relieve just a little of the pressure. _

_Jones helped, sliding the fabric down his legs and off his feet before removing his own clothes. He prodded Dan into the centre of the bed, stroking and kissing and biting until Dan worried he just wouldn't last long enough to get to the actual sex. _

_When he had him where he wanted him Jones began kissing his way down Dan's spine, slowly pressing his lips to each bump while his hands skimmed across Dan's skin, grazing it with his fingernails. The lower he went the more Dan's skin seemed to sear and Jones breathing became harsh and stuttered. Until finally Jones' hands brushed over the delicate fuzz covering Dan's arse. _

_"__Dan?" he asked, his voice wobbly and sounding as worked up as Dan felt._

_"__Mmm?" he answered, not sure he trusted himself to speak, what with Jones' hands spread across his backside like they were._

_"__D'you mind if I don't, um..." Dan could hear Jones' gulp and was obscenely glad that he was on his front and didn't have to make eye contact right now. "I mean I love kissin' you, an all... but... d'you mind if I don't..."_

_"__Jones," he replied softly, trying to sound confident and not just as petrified as the man kneeling between his legs. "If you dare try and stick your tongue up my arse I will kick you out of this bed. That's a promise."_

_Jones' laugh in response to that was nearly hysterical but he planted a big, silly kiss on Dan's left arse cheek which made Dan laugh too, and then the tension was gone again, and Jones was moving one of his hands in a slow circle over Dan's coccyx while his other hand fiddled about with things that Dan didn't really want to think about but knew he'd have to in a minute._

_There was a loud snap as the cap on the bottle of lube opened which made both men jump but Jones kept moving his hand slowly, calming them both as he squeezed a drizzle of lube between Dan's cheeks. It was cold, and his immediate reaction was to clench his muscles, but he took a deep breath instead. He was going to be fine. Jones would jump out of a window before hurting Dan - and Dan would do the same for him - they were safe and they cared about one another, and it was already starting to feel good._

_Jones squeezed more of the thick gel onto the fingers of one hand and slowly let them slide down along the crease of Dan's arse whilst the other came to rest gently on his thigh. He wasn't trying to do anything really, just letting his fingers travel up and down, brushing against Dan's puckered hole but not trying to push in. It felt really good now. Dan hadn't expected to feel so sensitive, or that he'd be quite this keen for Jones to move things along, but Jones' fingers, delicate yet calloused from his work, were sending tiny thrills up through his body and he wanted more._

_He spread his legs a little wider and tilted his hips, hoping that Jones would get the message, and was rewarded with a faint gasp. Jones began to circle his pointer finger around Dan's hole - round and round and round and tap - round and round and round and tap - like he was discovering a new beat, and Dan began to feel like he couldn't breathe. His cock was hard and leaking, trapped against the bed and making his pubic hair wet with precome yet Jones didn't seem to notice that he was sending his boyfriend insane, he'd discovered a rhythm he liked, a sensation that he was enjoying, and Dan dug his fingers into the duvet and tried to just let him get on with it._

_He didn't even hear the snap of the lid this time, and when more lube began to trickle down over Jones' finger to coat his entrance, it didn't feel so cold anymore. Jones let it trail down to Dan's testicles, already tight to his body, and ran his hand from the dimple at the top of Dan's arse all the way down to cup Dan's balls before returning to the maddening rhythm of - round and round and round and ... tap._

_Except that the next time he did it, Jones tapped twice. Dan tilted his hips as much as he could and huffed out a sigh as he felt the very tip of Jones' pointer finger press inside him. He hadn't pressed in further than his fingernail, or at least that's how it felt to Dan, it was hard to tell, and Jones sat still, his own breathing uneven. Dan could feel Jones' gaze on him, intense as he memorized the scene, and it gave Dan a moment as well, to realise just how good that pressure felt, and how much he wanted to feel more. Except that Jones still wasn't moving. _

_Dan let his hips rock, ever so slightly and made a sound that was part sigh and part moan at the feeling of his body moving against Jones' finger. He heard Jones squeeze the lube bottle again and let out an almost silent laugh as he felt more gel land right at the point where Jones' finger met his body. He stopped laughing quickly though as Jones removed his finger carefully, coated it more thickly in lubricant, and then pushed back in. _

_This time the finger went in further and Dan felt a slight burn as it hit the second ring of muscle just past the first, but as soon as Jones' finger slipped through, the discomfort was gone and Dan realised he'd begun to pant. Again Jones stopped, not moving his finger and just letting them both get used to the sensation, but this time Dan could feel the knuckles of Jones' other fingers pressing around his entrance and knew that Jones' finger was all the way in. Jones used his other hand to carefully spread Dan's cheeks a little, huffing out a little moan of his own at the sight._

_"__God, Dan," he purred. "I wish you could see how sexy you look." _

_Dan tightened his hold on the duvet, even though his hands were starting to cramp and sweat, as he heard the wet sound of Jones licking his lips._

_"__I think I can live without seeing a close-up of my own arse," he mumbled and Jones' answering chuckle made his shoulders move, which sent vibrations down to his finger, held so snuggly in Dan's arse. _

_Dan's moan was a lot more definite this time and Jones obliged him by beginning to move his finger in slow circles, pressing against Dan's delicate flesh and making him twitch and gasp. He leisurely began to thrust, after what seemed to Dan like hours, removing his finger only by a knuckle and then pushing back in gently until Dan thought he was going to burst. His whole body was fizzing, but especially around his entrance, and when Jones began to remove his finger again Dan tried to follow it with his hips, only to receive a bite to his arse cheek and a giggle from Jones._

_The younger man again drizzled lubricant over Dan's hole, and he moaned at how slowly they were going, even though the tiny part of his brain that hadn't short-circuited at Jones' touch told him that going slow was in both their best interests. He felt two fingers swirling around his hole, slightly less puckered and closed now, and let out a groan that he hoped Jones would interpret correctly. Jones was good with sounds, and if he didn't understand that Dan wanted those fingers in him, and fast, then there was something wrong with his ears. _

_When they did slide in Dan felt his body buck against the bed completely independent of his mind. Every nerve felt so electrified that he felt sure that he wouldn't have been able to climb off the bed even if he'd wanted to, and even though there was that same burn as the rings of muscles around his entrance stretched, the overall feeling of those digits sliding deep inside him felt like what he'd always wanted, even if he hadn't been aware of it. _

_When he'd said he wanted to bottom he'd mostly been putting Jones at his ease and trying to show that he trusted and loved Jones, that there was no need to be so worried, but he couldn't deny that he'd thought about it. The reality though, was so much more intense and enjoyable than he'd imagined, and he urged Jones on by rocking his hips until the two fingers were as far in as they could go._

_Jones circled his fingers again, taking his time, and Dan wondered if the other man had his eyes open to see the view, or closed to better imagine what his fingers were doing. Jones' circling began to intensify as he found where the muscle gave more, and he wriggled his fingers downwards until they tapped against something that made Dan gasp and buck against the bed once more._

_"__I heard that's good," Jones whispered and Dan could hear the pleased smirk in his words but couldn't make his mouth work to give a reply. _

_He lay there instead as Jones rubbed his fingers against his prostate, trying different patterns and rhythms until Dan realised that he felt like he was about to come. He'd forgotten about his cock and pressed his hips against the mattress as if reminding himself it was there. Strangely he didn't feel like he was that close - he didn't feel ready to come in that sense - but the feeling that Jones' fingers was producing made him want to. His body was shaking and he needed to get things moving._

_"__Jones," he breathed haltingly. "Please, Jones? I think I'm ready, I-"_

_His face was burning red but Jones leaned forward to kiss his back, pushing the fingers impossibly deeper and more firmly against Dan's prostate so that he forgot why he was embarrassed. _

_"__I think I like it when you beg," Jones whispered, swollen lips dragging against his skin, and then Dan felt Jones' wet, throbbing length pushing against his inner thigh and decided it was best to do whatever Jones liked._

_"__Please... come inside me?" he stuttered as Jones began to thrust his fingers in and out more quickly. "Please... fuck me?"_

_Jones let out a low growl like Dan had never heard before and then bit down on Dan's hip, sucking a love bite right where Dan would be able to feel it against the waistband of his jeans tomorrow. His fingers pushed and stretched Dan more forcefully now but the results were entirely positive and Dan felt his cock begin to harden even more until it was painfully full and aching against his abdomen._

_When Jones finally sat up, pulling his fingers out almost too carefully Dan did his best to stay still and calm. He looked over his shoulder and saw Jones open a condom like he'd never seen one before. His eyes were large and his pupils so wide there was only a thin rim of blue around the black. He looked young, certainly too young for his press age, but Dan no longer felt like he was taking advantage of a naive boy, Jones was a young adult. And one glance down as Jones began to roll the thin latex sheath over his large, and very erect, cock reminded him that the person he was about to have sex with was very much a man._

_Jones grabbed up the lube bottle and squeezed some over his dick, slicking it over and biting his lip at the sensation. His cheeks were flushed again, the blush going all the way down to his chest and Dan could see his ribs as he breathed hard, trying to stay calm. And then Jones poured yet more lube over his hole and Dan buried his face into the pillow._

_His entrance was actually throbbing now and Jones' excessive use of lubricant would have been funny if he weren't probing Dan with three fingers, pressing just inside the first barrier to stretch and wriggle, sliding in and out with delicious ease._

_And then the fingers moved back, holding him open while Jones' cock pressed against him. Dan had never felt so exposed. Jones was spreading his arse cheeks and rubbing his cock against Dan's desperate entrance, all the while drinking in the sight of him: open and needy and his. All his._

_Jones rubbed the head of his cock against Dan a few more times before sliding his thumbs down to Dan's entrance to guide himself inside. The head slipped inside so easily that Jones gasped and Dan canted his hips upwards in response, urging it deeper._

_They worked together, slowly but not hesitantly, until Dan could feel the damp tickle of Jones' wiry pubic hair against his skin, and knew he was completely filled. He'd never felt so properly filled in his life. He felt as though he was on fire, his whole body buzzing and fizzing like a droplet of water on a hot stovetop, but it was good and he wanted more of it._

_The ridge on the head of Jones' cock was pressing against his prostate and he curiously circled his hips, only to be overtaken with a spasm of pleasure as his prostate was rubbed and he felt even more clearly just how much Jones was inside him. He began to move his hips in tiny rocking motions and Jones soon seemed to realise that he should be moving too, and began to press into him. He kept his thrusts small at first but soon built up speed and gripped Dan's hips hard enough to bruise each time he pulled out until only his head was inside Dan, rolling his hips to make Dan moan, before plunging back in._

_"__Oh, fuck, Dan!" he whispered above the sound of their skin, tacky with lube and sweat, slapping together over and over. "You look... you feel... I can't even-"_

_Dan didn't get to hear the rest of Jones' barely coherent thought as the younger man pressed his whole body against Dan's back and slipped a hand down to wrap around Dan's aching erection._

_"__Oh!" Dan gasped as Jones squeezed and his hips jolted fiercely. Suddenly it was all too much. He was on his knees with his face in a pillow, being fucked so hard and so well he couldn't breathe or see or think, and he'd never expected this but now he didn't want it to ever stop._

_But then Jones stroked his hand up and over the head of Dan's penis while his own dick pushed hard against his prostate and Dan couldn't do anything except let his orgasm hit him and drown him, like a wave at the beach, pulling him under so he didn't know which way was up or where to swim for._

_His muscles tightened around Jones with such force that it actually hurt and he felt Jones' face against the small of his back, crying out as he was caught up in the sensation and hit by his own, intense orgasm. Even through the condom he could feel the pulsing of Jones' cock as he came and his body shuddered at the sensation, trying to calm itself but still being shaken by Jones' moving inside him, and the aftershocks of the most powerful orgasm of his life._

_When Jones' hips finally stopped moving they both stayed as they were, unable to move even though Dan's legs were shaking with exhaustion from all that they'd done and having Jones draped over his back. The pillow beneath him was damp, mostly from spit but from tears too, and his back, where Jones' face was pressed into him, was equally wet._

_After several long minutes of silence Jones began to shuffle backwards and Dan winced as Jones pulled out, holding the condom in place on his penis so that it didn't get left behind. The mattress dipped as Jones sat and removed the used condom and Dan could hear the rubbery sounds as Jones tied off the end. When Jones stood up and put the used johnny in the bin in the corner Dan tried to talk his body into moving but couldn't and it wasn't until Jones walked back over and ran his hand down Dan's side that his knees collapsed and he fell back onto the bed with a groan, cringing when he realised he was lying in his own come._

_"__Was that..." Jones hesitated, and Dan peered up as Jones began to fidget, trying to cover his nakedness with his hands. _

_"__It was amazing," Dan told him. "And now you need to come here and hold me until my heart stops trying to climb out of my body via my mouth."_

_Jones jumped on the bed and wrapped his arms and legs around Dan in a sticky, tangled mess and pressed a kiss to Dan's chest._

_"__We should probably have a shower," he mumbled sleepily, pressing his face against Dan so that he could feel Jones wide grin. "We smell like... The Sex. And arse."_

_Dan chuckled and kissed the top of Jones' head, feeling sleep dragging him inevitably and blissfully down. In fact, he was right on the brink of nothingness, and thought Jones was already there, when he heard the younger man sigh happily._

_"__Thanks, Dan. Thank you."_

_And they'd both fallen asleep - a rare occurrence in the House of Jones - so satisfied and dreamily content that neither could even remember what fear felt like. _


	19. Chapter 19

Jones stared at the clock. It had his face on it. It'd been funny when he was seventeen, to paint his face on stuff, now it just made him feel stupid: like an Idiot. His face was one of the only things he could really paint well, which he knew was vain, but even when he tried to draw other people they always ended up with pointy chins and a nose like a massive arrow, pointing down like a freudian metaphor. Except Dan. He could draw Dan. He had piles and piles of paper - the backs of Dan's draft articles, bills, letters, stuff Dan brought home from SugaRape - that he'd drawn Dan's face on, but Dan had been adamant about not having a portrait of himself hanging in the house. Jones had even started one, had stretched the canvas and done the outline, but that was as far as he ever got. Dan didn't want Jones to paint him, so Jones stopped and pretended it didn't matter.

Which meant that now they had a house full of Jones, and the only reminder that Dan even existed within these walls were the clothes scattered about the bedroom. The house even smelt different now, without the faint undercurrent of whiskey and stale beer. It wasn't a bad thing, he supposed, because spirits seeping into carpet wasn't exactly a nice smell - it reminded Jones of the feeling you got when you woke up after forgetting to brush your teeth, cos you weren't actually intending to fall asleep - all furry and gluggy and hard to wash away. It had made the house feel colder and he was glad it was gone, but...

Jones tried to shift his hips to be more comfortable without moving so much that Dan'd notice and wake up. Trust Dan to fall asleep to the sound of his fucking tantrum.

He stretched his neck around to try and get a proper look at the man who would probably be embarrassed to find out just how important he was. Sitting on the floor and using the couch as a back rest had seemed like a good idea a few hours ago but now his arse was asleep and his ribs really hurt. He'd thought about snuggling in next to Dan but didn't want to lean on any of his broken bits and because... well, because he couldn't make the voice in his head, that was telling him he didn't deserve a Dan cuddle, shut up.

He shouldn't have snapped at him, he shouldn't have had a tantrum like a bratty kid, and now they had one less mug and the kitchen cabinets were scuffed up and would need repainting. He'd just felt... out of control. Which was stupid. Dan'd seen him shirtless too many times to count - until Claire moved in he'd quite enjoyed prancing about the place in no more than a towel to try and make Dan chase him to the bed - but it was different when he wasn't in the mood. And he wasn't keen on the idea that his body was somehow public property 'cos everyone'd seen it in that shitty magazine.

It all came back to SugaRape in the end.

When they'd met, Dan had been a music reviewer, and he'd loved it. Jones read everything Dan wrote and listened obsessively to the albums he reviewed. He'd been like a fan rather than a friend but Dan had been... indulgent. Sometimes Jones wondered whether Dan had let their first kiss happen just because he liked to give Jones whatever he wanted but he didn't think Dan had really been that against them getting together when it did happen. At least, he hoped he didn't regret it.

When Dan had started writing feature articles as well as music reviews he'd been more reluctant to let Jones read his words and Jones could understand why. Each piece was more acerbic and sarcastic than the last and the assignments that Jonatton Yeah? sent him on gradually became more and more degrading until Dan began to hide each edition from Jones, and then not bring them home at all.

He had shown Jones the _'Rise of the Idiots'_ piece though. He'd been proud of that and Jones could see why. It was good. Like music, but in words. Like poetry but not as twattish. He'd told Dan it was brilliant but Dan'd just grunted at him - a noise that said very clearly that he wanted to be left alone - and it had made Jones wonder whether Dan viewed him as one of the Idiots he despised so much. He'd always said Jones was different but maybe he'd changed his mind.

He'd tried harder with his music but it had got more and more difficult to get Dan's attention and then...

Jones shook his head to clear away the thoughts. They never led anywhere, they just went around and around, like a Christmas CD, played ad nauseum until you wanted to scream. His rib ached, where that duche outside the club had punched him, and his arm hurt from the graze he'd got when he fell, and he probably did need to clean them up. Dan's breathing was still steady, so he probably wouldn't wake up if Jones was careful and he shifted himself around some more, until he was sitting up and facing Dan, with the first aid kit in front of him.

He smiled. Dan always looked so serious when he was sleeping, like he was reading through something really important, or dreaming of all the things that'd gone wrong during the day. But his breathing when he slept was beautiful. It reminded Jones of the sea. He'd only been once, when he was a kid, the year before his dad died. They'd rented a little house down at some beach - Jones couldn't even remember it's name - and every night for a week Jones had gone to sleep with the window open and the sound of the sea in his head.

It had been strange, because the dark made it hard to tell just how far away the water was, and he could imagine that it was just outside the house, carrying him off to some far away place, like in _"Where the Wild Things Are". _And the sound was just movement, rocking and shifting and felt to Jones like the world breathing.

And Dan breathing, all calm and asleep and still, was like that too. Like a clear, dark blue night that was almost black except for the ripples of silver from the moon. It was one of the best sounds he'd ever heard, a memory sound that calmed him down, and so, when he actually removed his t-shirt and began to inspect the bruise that was blossoming on his ribs, he didn't feel so bad.

There wasn't a lot he could do about it. The skin was broken in a few places but it didn't need strapping, and the grazes on his arm just needed a quick clean, but when he was nearly done he suddenly realised that the room had gone very still. There was no back and forth movement, no calm, and when he looked up, Dan was gazing at him by the dim glow of the kitchen light, like a statue that'd come to life.

"Hey," he whispered nervously.

"Hey," Dan croaked and Jones shuffled forward to plant a gentle kiss on his lips so Dan would know he was sorry without either of them having to say anything.

"You should go back to sleep," he murmured, stroking Dan's untidy curls. His hair was still too short, after the whole 'Geek Pie' episode, but the curls were starting to reappear, and Jones couldn't help but smile at the way the hairs bounced a bit as he ran his fingers through.

"Have you slept at all?"

Dan still sounded half-asleep, but he was peering at Jones the way he'd used to, back when he used to keep an eye on whether Jones was getting enough sleep and eating actual food rather than just coffee. Jones considered lying and saying that he had but shook his head instead.

"I gotta be at Stanley's at ten. Didn't seem much point in sleeping."

"You've just been sitting here in the dark then?"

Jones nodded and pressed another kiss to Dan's lips, a little more desperate than the last. Dan pressed back and he could feel their teeth pushing together through their lips in a way that almost hurt but felt good and right as well.

They tried not to break the kiss as Dan sat up but it didn't really work and Jones laughed quietly into his lover's mouth as he was pulled onto the couch and into Dan's lap.

He scraped his cheek along Dan's, enjoying the shiver that went through the other man at the sensation and let his hand trail up Dan's chest to rest over his heart before diving back in for another messy kiss.

"What time is it?" Dan gasped as Jones pressed his weight down against his groin.

"Nearly eight thirty," Jones replied, starting up a slow rhythm as he pushed their bodies together. "Plenty of time."

Dan's chuckle felt like an electric shock down his spine and Jones fought to unbuckle his jeans, which only made Dan laugh more.

"It'll be ok," he mumbled into Jones' mouth, saying it over and over like he was trying to calm Jones down even as his good hand delved into Jones' tight trousers. "I'm just glad you're safe."

Jones nodded and pushed the heavy fabric down and off his legs, pulling desperately at Dan's pajamas and t-shirt until they were both, finally naked.

"I just- I just-"

"It'll be alright, Jonesy, please believe me. I love you," Dan whispered and Jones tried to hold back the horrible sob that wanted to escape his throat at hearing those words.

He nodded again, because talking was just not going to happen, and let Dan prod him about until their bodies were properly lined up. Dan wrapped his large hand around both of their leaking erections and began to stroke lazily as Jones felt himself come undone, his sob coming out as a moan that rippled through the silence and made the colours seem a just little sharper.

And when Dan began to kiss and suck at his throat, whispering beautiful nonsense as they both began to pant, Jones actually believed it. Everything would be alright.

Neither of them lasted long, one still pliant from sleep, the other from exhaustion, and when it was done Dan held him tight enough that his bruised ribs burned, like holding a mug of coffee that was too hot but that you didn't want to put down. It made colours dance in front of his eyes; pale, green splotches of colour like lemon-lime sherbet.

"I should have a shower," he mumbled, feeling his words vibrate through Dan's chest like a low quality playback. "For work."

"Probably," Dan agreed. "But you'll have to help me get clean first."

Jones grinned, looking up at Dan and watching his lover fight to make eye contact.

"You requesting another sponge bath? I thought you were playing the nurse this time."

Dan's laugh was deep, like the rumble of a freight train and Jones kissed his nose, even though it was silly, which only made Dan laugh more.

"I tried to play nurse but you weren't in the mood," he grumbled. "So it's your turn."

"Fair enough," Jones nodded, climbing to his feet and pulling Dan up after him.

"And you better do a good job," Dan warned him, hobbling across the room until he finally agreed to take Jones' arm.

"Why's that?"

"Because I'm walking you to work - No arguing! - we'll grab a coffee on the way. I'm buying."

Jones raised his eyebrows and when Dan grinned at him with that smile that had always seemed to Jones to be a bit predatory, and couldn't be argued with, he felt a little shiver go down his spine. They were finally going out as a couple. Even if the SugaRape article had never happened he liked to think that they would be doing it anyway but now they were coming out and proving that they were in a normal, loving relationship, rather than just coming out full stop. It was terrifying but at the same time he trusted Dan when he said it was going to be alright.

"Wait," he said, turning to face Dan in the bathroom doorway. "You're buying me coffee? How'd you plan to do that, exactly?"

"Oh, yeah," Dan replied slyly. "Can I borrow a tenner?"

The laughter bubbled out of Jones so fast he couldn't stop it so he let it happen, cackling like a madman while Dan just grinned at him, like making Jones laugh was the best thing in the world. It was going to be alright, they'd show Jonatton and the idiots like him that they weren't going to be beaten with intimidation and slander. But they needed to clean themselves up first, it wouldn't be the best look to go out with their hair mussed and bellies covered in dried spunk. He was going to need a seriously good outfit for this.


	20. Chapter 20

**Sorry this story has slowed down a bit, it's been a hectic few days. And sorry this is one of those exposition type chapters. I'll try writing more tomorrow.**

* * *

><p>Sasha stepped out of <em>Place<em>, took a deep breath, and allowed herself a small, satisfied smile. Manipulating people into believing that her argument was what they actually wanted was much easier than she'd imagined.

She'd walked in to Doug Rocket's office an hour ago to explain to him that she was very grateful that he had agreed to see her first thing on a Saturday morning, and that his decision to boycott SugaRape was the best decision of his career. He'd barely been aware of the fact that he was boycotting but Sasha had assured him that he was taking a stand and that everyone was behind him and had he considered making a public statement so that other individuals and brands who spent money on advertising in the magazine knew that they too should join his truly, forward thinking and necessary cause.

Rocket had liked that, he liked to think of himself as a pioneer. His assistant had just been pleased that they were saving money on advertising. He hadn't looked too thrilled when Sasha expressed an interest in joining Rocket's staff but Rocket certainly had, and she'd won them both over in the end.

_"__It's all about moving forward," she explained as Doug nodded sagely along with her. "You could be at the forefront of the digital age - you deserve to be at the forefront of the digital age - and you could do it with half the people."_

_The assistant had perked up at that, his pale face darting up to look at her like a hopeful little otter, and she'd given him a wink before focusing back on Rocket. _

_"__You see, Mr Rocket, 'Place' doesn't need to be a physical place."_

_"__It doesn't?"_

_"__Oh, no. The future is the internet, you know that of course."_

_"__Yes, well," Rocket gushed, "obviously I do!"_

_"__And you know that the world of internet videos is where you're inevitably heading."_

_"__I do?"_

_"__Of course," Sasha nodded. "Your music was an inspiration to a generation, your video clips, especially. But you've spread yourself too thin with too many projects."_

_Now his weedy assistant was nodding too and Doug was smiling in what he no doubt thought was a bashful way, as if he knew all of this already._

_"__Well," he enthused, "I have always said that film is the future."_

_"__And magazines like SugaRape are the past," Sasha agreed emphatically. "They've trampled on the good name of Dan Ashcroft - one of your greatest supporters - and I think you already know what needs to be done."_

_"__I do?" Doug blinked. He'd been carried away in the thoughts of Ashcroft as one of his admirers, which he knew was true of course, but Sasha and his assistant were nodding at him, and of course he did. "I do! Yes! But of course, you will organise the details."_

_"__Of course," Sasha grinned. "Release a video detailing your support for Dan and asking others to turn away from homophobic, sexist, narrow-minded publications like SugaRape."_

_Rocket nodded emphatically at that and Sasha kept smiling. People like Rocket wouldn't raise their voices against the other vices of SugaRape, but they were all for liberty and human fluidity, and the idea that they might be labelled homophobic, made them sweat._

_"__I will of course need to be on your payroll," she segued smoothly and saw the pleased look drop from the otter-man's face, but Rocket didn't notice._

_"__Oh, it goes without saying!"_

_"__But I have several strategies for saving you thousands of pounds already, with only a few staff cuts."_

_It had all been very amicable after that. Sasha had shaken Rocket's hand, who insisted she call him Doug, and had organised to come in later that day to begin work on the video that Doug was already calling 'his big come back.'_

Sasha's smile widened. The assistant, Robin, had filed the paperwork and quietly thanked her for being able to convince Rocket to cut costs and had pointed out several people who didn't actually do any work at _Place._

There had been one man, working the front desk, who she'd thought could probably be let go, until he introduced himself as the person who had sent the original email requesting a cancellation of _Place's_ advertising with SugaRape. He was a bit thick but he seemed to know the ins and outs of the company and he'd been complimentary and had asked Sasha if she'd like to go out for a drink that evening. He'd even given her his phone number, shyly, on a business card and Sasha was tempted to take him up on his offer.

_'__Toby - from the front desk'_ he'd written above his number. He'd seemed keen to bring down Jonatton and help out Dan, and he'd complimented her shoes.

Sasha typed him a quick text. She'd be back at midday and would appreciate his help in learning more about her new place of work, and would love to join him for a drink when they were done.

Sasha didn't need a strong man, or one who thought he should be in control, but a man who knew to compliment her shoes, well, he was worth at least a first date.

She walked down the street, mentally ticking things of her 'To do' list when she spotted a familiar shape up ahead at an intersection. She'd know those sloping shoulders and wild hair anywhere, but she was surprised to see Dan out and about. She smiled genuinely when she realised that the person standing next to him, looking nervous and a little concerned, was Jones.

Dan was leaning on a metal, hospital issue, cane with his good hand and his other was being held awkwardly in Jones', their fingers entwined despite the bulky plaster. They looked sweet together. Jones in all his trinkets, ripped t-shirt and multi-coloured hair and Dan in his faded jeans, loose enough to accommodate the cast on his leg, and a worn, grey and brown, checked shirt.

She could see that there were other people staring at them, a group of trendies just ahead of her were actually pointing, but Dan and Jones were doing their best to act like they hadn't noticed. It made Sasha's indignation rise, that the whole sorry incident had happened. She'd gotten caught up in the last twenty-four hours, with how she was going to ruin Jonatton Yeah? and she hadn't even thought to call Dan to let him know that not everyone was mocking him. Everything she had set in motion - the emails to the members of the Press Complaints Commission, to every other magazine being published locally, and to as many of their other sponsors as she could think of - had been in aid of Dan, yet she really hadn't thought of him much.

She sped up her steps until she was keeping pace with the idiots who were talking about Dan "The Preacher Man" and "Choir Boy" Jones too loudly to be considered polite, and waited for an opening in their conversation.

"Did you see it coming?"

"No way. Who would have thought a bloke like him liked cock, you know what I'm saying?"

"Yeah, like, I was just, like, blown, yeah?"

"And why'd he keep it a secret 'til now? 'Less there was something, like, well underhanded going down?"

"Oh," Sasha looked at the group in confusion. "Did you not know?"

They all turned to her with looks of dense confusion it is was hard work to keep her face blank.

"Wha?"

"I thought everyone knew about Dan Ashcroft and DJ Jones," she shrugged and watched their eyes almost bug out of their heads. "They've certainly never hidden it."

She tried to look gormless as she watched the face of one of the woman transforming in disbelief, not that Dan Ashcroft was in truth in a relationship with a man, but that she hadn't been in the know.

"Are you serious?"

"Oh, yes," Sasha said, even though being serious was increasingly difficult. "The _real_ gossip is that Jonatton Yeah? _didn't_ know. What the _rest_ of us _did_. D'you know what I'm saying?"

She watches as they all nodded in unison, their eyes flicking over to where Dan and Jones were still standing at the pedestrian crossing. She watched the barely-used cogs of their brains slowly come to terms with what they needed to do in order to be cool. It wasn't hard, they had nothing against gay people, it was the naughties after all, and Dan Ashcroft _was_ still cool...

"So," asked one of the men from behind his slatted sunglasses. "All that stuff about him being..." He looked to embarrassed to finish so Sasha gave him an understanding nod.

"All made up by SugaRape to make Dan look bad," Sasha confided. "I mean, look at him, he's a teddy bear."

And they did look. The two men were walking across the road and Jones was looking up with both worry and admiration at Dan, who's brow was creased with the strain of walking with his broken leg.

Sasha smiled back at the group of standard issue idiots. Perhaps she should be a politician because as much as she only wanted justice restored to her tiny corner of London, getting people to think whatever she wanted them to was rather fun.

"SugaRape's lost it's edge," she told them in a stage whisper. "Dan left. Everyone who's anyone is boycotting it. SugaRape's just not... cool... anymore. Bye now."

She walked away before she could start laughing and crossed the street to the cafe Dan and Jones had just entered. Today was turning out to be one of the best Saturdays she'd had in a long time.


	21. Chapter 21

"The Death of the Independent Voice" some were calling it.

A lot of other people were calling it "about bloody time" or "good riddance" or "That twat Jonatton finally getting his comeuppance."

Rocket was calling it his greatest triumph.

Robin was calling it a job well done.

Toby just called it a really full on weekend!

It'd only been three days but in that time there had been some serious moves pulled by a lot of important and scary people and Toby liked to think he'd had a hand in getting that all rolling. The whole Hero thing had been easier than he'd thought, or maybe he was just a natural.

It hadn't been hard to convince Robin that _Place_ should stop advertising in SugaRape, the poor bloke was practically vibrating with fear at how much money Doug Rocket seemed to be losing on a daily basis. Then Sasha turned up and Rocket had been all too ready to jump at the chance of making a statement about the importance of 'free love' and while Toby was pretty sure that wasn't the actual problem - Dan was likely to be more concerned over the whole invasion of privacy bit - it had started the shit-storm that was currently enveloping the magazine formerly known as SugaRape... which was actually the magazine formerly known as SugarApe... which was really confusing.

He watched Sasha as she whirled around the office. She was pretty fucking magnificent, like a goddess in really high heels and a pencil skirt, and he was tapping that. Not that she'd be happy to hear him say that, she'd probably be pissed to know he was even thinking it, cos there were rules and if he wanted to turn what they had into a relationship then he had to follow them, and the first rule was respect. But that was ok, Toby could work with rules, because Sasha was amazing and she actually liked him.

He'd had to call Claire and apologise. He was still happy to help out Dan and all that but he didn't really want to feel her nipples anymore, not if it was going to ruin what he had going with Sasha. And, weirdly, Claire didn't seem that hot anymore either. I mean, she was alright, and he'd never be stupid enough to say to her face that he didn't think she was that much of a love muffin, but it was true.

Claire slouched. He'd pointed it out to Sasha last night, that Sasha had, like, confident shoulders and that, and she'd explained that people responded to body language before you even got close enough to open your mouth so the way you walked and stood were important. She said the secret to success appeared to be walking through the world like you were one step away from stabbing someone in the chest with your stiletto. Then she'd let Toby go down on her. Yep, life was pretty sweet right now.

Sasha headed over to his desk, her hips swaying in a way that really did make it seem like someone was about to die, and he tried to look like he was busy and knew what he was doing.

"Toby," she said, giving him that little smile that made him want to sit up really straight. "How's the internet feedback coming?"

"Really good, Sasha, really good," he nodded, pulling up the comments. "I've been making sure that the worst of the troll responses get taken down and have got our five dummy accounts egging on the positive feedback. And my cousin Dajve put up a video response about free love and she linked it to Rocket's and that's just, like gone mental, with the internet peeps, and she texted me to ask if she could maybe get together with Mr Rocket for a remix of one of his old hits, and..."

He did probably have more to say, but Sasha was really smiling at him now and leaning over the counter of the front desk so that he could see all the way down her blouse to the lace on her bra. It was red and black, he hadn't seen it before, which meant that he'd now seen two of Sasha's bras. Which was more than he'd ever seen of any other real life girl ever.

"Well done, Toby," she purred and Toby tried to lick his lips, but realised his tongue was too dry. "I never would have thought of dummy accounts to combat the trolls. You're not as stupid as you look, are you?"

"Not really," Toby replied, trying to grin in a beguiling way.

Sasha made a little humming noise behind her pursed lips, almost like a laugh but not like she was laughing _at_ him.

"And have we heard from the Complaints Commission yet?"

"Not yet," Toby grinned, resting his face on his hand and trying to stare up at Sasha in a way that implied that he would be well up for some discrete lunchtime fondling, if that's what Sasha wanted. Except he was probably going to be a bit too busy for a proper lunch break today, what with being the only person on the front desk now, and the schedule of work Sasha had printed out for him when he'd arrived that morning.

Sasha frowned. That wasn't good. He couldn't let her get cross or she might not want to see him, or work at _Place_ and she was definitely the best thing to happen to the place, and him, since forever.

"I did get an email from, um, Dr Ashcroft, solicitor, who wants to conference call with you."

At this Sasha's face perked up again and Toby wanted to show her that he could be helpful and knowledgable, even though he knew he was really like the... well... if this was a heist film he'd be like the mechanic or something, who didn't mastermind the plan but was still, like, totally integral to the job's success.

"Really?"

"Yup. I reckon it's Dan and Claire's mum. She's a lawyer or something like that. She got Dan out of Nathan's TV show even though he'd signed a release."

"Hmm."

Sasha hummed again and Toby shivered at the sound. He'd gotten to be naked with Sasha twice now and he knew that she liked to make that sound when he did something right. She was a good teacher as well. Soon he'd be good enough with his tongue that she was going to let him move on to using his fingers. And then... who knew.

"Forward the email to my account," she told him seriously, and Toby nodded, trying to be professional even though under the counter his trousers were so tight it was really hard work not to squirm. "Well done, Toby. I'll bring you a baguette for lunch, since you'll have so much work to be getting on with, would you like that?"

"Yes please," Toby answered quickly.

He thought maybe he sounded a bit desperate but Sasha smiled at him again before heading off to Rocket's office, still walking like she owned the place, like she owned _Place_, and Toby grinned. A sandwich wasn't quite what he'd been after for lunch but it was still good progress. And if he let Sasha buy him lunch, maybe he could buy her dinner again.

Or maybe he should bring around dinner for her and her little sisters. They were sweet girls and if he did that it'd be like proving that he wasn't scared of commitment and responsibility and all. Maybe he could bring them dinner and then afterwards do the dishes! Women liked that sort of thing.

He forwarded the email, and several others that he reckoned Sasha should look at, then went back to being _Rocketfan101, Freelove64, Gellyhair29, notrash4you,_ and _shoreditchcool09,_ whilst fielding calls from magazines and tabloids who wanted a statement. He had a prepared one to read out and had gotten so good at it that someone actually said, "Thank you Mr Rocket" when he was done.

It was quarter past one, and he was eating his baguette, well, half of Sasha's baguette, which was totally better because it was totally the sort of thing that people who were a solid item did - Dan and his boyfriend probably did it all the time - when the front doors slid open and someone walked in.

Toby nearly choked on his chicken and avocado.

It wasn't like the first time he'd seen Jones, but it was the first time he'd seen him close up.

"Hi, I'm, um-"

"Jones!" Toby finished for him, jumping up and holding his hand out for Jones to shake. "'M Toby. I'm a friend of Claire's."

"Right," Jones replied and Toby smiled in a way that he hoped was friendly but not pervy. "She hasn't really talked about you. But, you know, she's not living with me anymore, so... and we never really talked that much, but... I've seen you working the door at parties and stuff though. Nice to meet you?"

Jones was taller than he'd remembered, and skinny, but in a rock star sort of way, and it felt weird to be shaking hands with someone who's hand was strong and a bit calloused but that had painted purple nails, and being able to feel the edge of one of the guys bangles as well. That was probably, like, that thing - juxtaposition - his brain supplied. Like, lots of stuff that seemed opposite but then worked well together and made you think about stuff in a different way. Like art. Toby suddenly felt really deep, and couldn't wait to tell Sasha about it later. She'd probably be impressed.

And Jones was wearing make-up too. Which was fine, Toby told himself. He'd been really into Adam Ant when he was little and that guy had rocked eyeliner and that.

Mostly Jones' make-up seemed to be hiding a bruise around his eye and nose, and Toby had heard the rumour from Rufus yesterday that Jones had nutted a guy twice his size for trying it on with him after his Friday night spot at that techno club. Jones might be pretty but he seemed tough too. Toby'd never thrown a punch in his life and he decided he wanted Jones to like him, because he didn't fancy getting his head kicked in by a guy in eye shadow and sparkly boots. He didn't fancy getting his head kicked in by anyone, actually.

He hadn't expected him to be so softly spoken though. Toby realised, in a proper moment of epiphany, that he sounded a bit like Dan did (when he wasn't drunk and yelling, obviously) all quiet and a bit nervous but totally charming at the same time.

He could totally get why someone would go gay for Jones now. Not that he was going to, of course. He had Sasha, and he still didn't think he could go for, you know, cock, but Jones seemed like the sort of bloke anyone could easily want to be in love with.

"Um," Jones said taking his hand back. "I ran into Sasha on Saturday and she said to drop by. Is she in, mate?"

"Oh, yeah," Toby agreed. "She's just in her office, but she might be eating lunch. She and I are sharing a baguette, cos we're, like..."

Toby didn't know how to finish that sentence. He was massively keen to tell people that he was with Sasha, and not just for bragging rights or anything like that, but he wasn't sure that he was allowed to. Sasha hadn't said he could and he wasn't even sure if she considered them a couple or anything.

But Jones grinned at him and nodded like he understood, and Toby guessed that after being in a covert relationship for the last few years, Jones probably did understand pretty well.

"Right. Congratulations. She's pretty cool."

"Yeah, I know, right!" Toby beamed. He tried to reel it in, 'cos enthusiasm wasn't cool, but Jones just smiled at him with teeth that were crooked but in a David Bowie kind of way, which made him feel like less of an idiot. "Dan's cool too, though," he said, so Jones wouldn't feel left out.

"Yeah, I know,"Jones replied and Toby found himself watching a bit too closely at the way Jones' arm came up when he ruffled the back of his hair with his hand. "So... Sasha?"

Toby pointed in the direction of her office and wondered if he should shake the DJs hand again but Jones was too quick and set off toward Sasha's door with a friendly wave before Toby thought to put his hand out.

If Sasha moved like some sort of Goddess of Death, Toby reckoned Jones moved like the God of a Good Party. He rolled his hips a bit like Sasha but looser, and he looked like he was moving to music even though he didn't have headphones on. Toby could see them hanging from Jones' satchel, beat up and grubby, with gaff tape on one of the ear pads where the fake leather had peeled away. They weren't cool, or the latest thing from Japan, like the five pairs of headphones Nathan had, but somehow they seemed more... (Toby wracked his brain for an intelligent descriptor)... legit? Yeah, legit. Jones' stuff was old but it was used a lot and not just for show.

Toby nodded to himself. He felt like he'd had another epiphany. He was getting absolutely wise and it was all because of Sasha. He couldn't wait to tell her all the new stuff he'd realised, but she was going to be busy for hours yet so he wrote it out on a post-it note so he wouldn't forget, then looked up where the least cheap Chinese take-away was near Sasha's and put through an order that he could pick up on their way home from work.

Toby still wanted to be a hero, but he reckoned there was more to it than just saving the day or making a bold move. Sasha was a strong woman (she didn't really need comforting) and next year she'd be finished her degree and be out in the world as a kick arse lawyer, or something like that. She was going to need someone around who could pack lunches and do laundry and cook a mean omelet. And he reckoned he could totally fill that job description.


	22. Chapter 22

Jones knocked on the door and, when he heard a murmur that sounded like 'come in', he did. He tried to breathe normally and not look so jittery because he knew he wasn't in trouble. Sasha was a bit intimidating but when she'd introduced herself to him on Saturday morning she'd been friendly enough. Her voice had been a bit sharp when talking to Dan, like she was annoyed with him about something, even when she was telling him about everything she'd done to discredit Jonatton, and Dan had just looked down at the cheap tabletop like he was being told off, which was all a bit confusing.

Jones had looked at them both and wondered, despite himself, whether they'd ever once... been together. There was something about the way they danced around each other, turning the air all muted, like morning smog, with the stuff they wouldn't say, Sasha searching for eye contact and Dan going out of his way to look anywhere else. It made him nervous. He'd never been with a girl, never even kissed one. He found them attractive and occasionally they worked their way into his dirty dreams, but he'd fallen in love with Dan pretty fast and pretty deep. And pretty young too. But Dan'd had girlfriends before and sometimes Jones wondered if he missed it.

Sasha wasn't really Jones' type. If he had to describe a type it'd probably be someone along the lines of TankGirl or Courtney Love, while for men it tended towards Kirk Cobain and Daniel Johns. And Dan. Sasha was beautiful but she was a bit too perfect for Jones. But maybe Dan liked that. Whenever the topic had come up, usually when they were messing about in bed and talking about what turned them on and Dan was drunk enough to actually talk about that sort of thing, he claimed that he only went for bookish people with thick, round glasses and tweed skirts and that Jones was a bizarre anomaly that he never wanted to try and analyse.

Sasha wasn't exactly bookish, but she was definitely something. She'd reminded Jones of a teacher he'd had once, who never had to raise her voice to keep the class under control. She could just look at you and you knew you were acting like a nob and that she couldn't be less impressed if she tried. Her voice wasn't a boom or a gun shot or a whip crack, it was the scraping of a blade along an alley wall before it was jabbed in the direction of your kidneys. But with a glossy smile and perfectly on point eye liner.

She'd invited both Dan and Jones to her new office, to fill them in on _developments_, as she'd called it, but Jones hadn't wanted to go. Just like with that teacher, Jones couldn't shake the feeling that Sasha had talked down to him, even though she was trying to be nice and show she was on his side, because she was just so much smarter than him and he was bound to not understand most of what she was saying.

It'd made him even more nervous about his shift at Stanley's and he'd been off the beat all day, though no one seemed to notice. In fact, he'd got nothing but hugs and reassuring smiles the whole day, which again, was supposed to make him feel better and instead just made his skin feel all prickly, like putting a scratchy woolen jumper on damp skin. But people had wanted to hug him, to reassure him, and to forgive him, he supposed, for keeping his relationship a secret for that many years. Fancy that, he'd thought at the time, needing to be forgiven for keeping his private life private, for not wanting to get beaten up for being a poof.

But hugs hadn't been the only thing he'd been given. Sveta, one of the colourists, had given him a big box of chocolates, and everyone else had bought him coffee. Six coffees, to be exact.

He'd been wired by the time he got home and dark purple sparks had been darting in front of his eyes like little warning bells. He hadn't eaten much breakfast, he'd been too nervous and Dan had been starving, so he'd let most of their beans and toast go to him, but he hadn't eaten lunch either, and didn't remember whether he'd eaten dinner the night before. It was all getting a bit fuzzy around the edges.

He'd had a hard time getting his key into the lock when he got home, cringing at the clicking scrapes of his key against the door, a sound he had associated for too long with Dan coming home pissed, and when he finally got in, he felt like he was about to cry and he didn't really know why. He'd drunk more coffee than this before, stayed up longer to keep the nightmares away before, gone longer without a decent meal, so why was he falling apart now? Dan needed him, regardless of what he said about feeling better in his mind, Dan still needed him - it was his turn for fucks sake! - and instead he felt like he was breaking apart. Like an old piece of birthday cake gone dry instead of soggy so it just fell apart in your hand when you tried to pick it up and then there were only crumbs left, clinging to your fingers like ants.

He'd stumbled to the kitchen, thinking maybe a drink of water would help, and had found Dan, making grilled cheese, with a look of intense concentration on his face. That had, for some reason, made Jones want to cry even more, and he crossed to the sink to drink directly from the tap, while Dan tutted at him like a proper old woman that they did still own some glasses, but Jones could tell he wasn't really cross. And when they sat down on the couch with the plate of grilled cheese - the toast cut into odd shapes where Dan'd sliced away the mold - wrapped in the blanket with his shoulder pressed to Dan's, he'd felt a lot better.

Dan'd held him and told him how Sasha was alright, even if she couldn't name her ten favourite bands because she just "wasn't that into music", and Dan'd shaken his head in despair, and things had been ok. He'd drifted over to his decks at around eleven, setting them back up the way he liked them, and fiddling around with old mixes as he watched Dan fall asleep. He'd been tempted to carry on through the night but went to the bathroom instead and rooted around until he found his sleeping pills.

One with water, that was all he ever took, then it was back down the hallway to the lounge room. He really, really wanted to cuddle up on Dan's sofa but part of him still didn't feel deserving of sleepy Dan cuddles so he curled up on the other sofa instead and closed his eyes, wishing that sleep would just hurry up already...

Jones felt a jolt as he was knocked out of the memory and back into the present. Sasha was gesturing for him to sit down. She was on the phone and she was smiling and she didn't look quite as scary today, she looked more excited than anything.

"Oh, that is so generous! Thank you so much... Yes... No, no I have, he's just this moment walked in to my office..."

She smiled again as Jones lowered himself into the chair, which was shaped like a giant hand and was really not comfortable. The office around them was scattered with boxes but Sasha had already made her mark on the space with photographs of people he assumed were her family. There was one that he found he couldn't stop looking at. A man and a woman were standing in front of a little terrace house, smiling like they couldn't image anything ever going wrong. The man, Sasha's dad, he supposes, had an arm around a snarky-looking teenager who could only be Sasha, while the woman, her mum, was trying to hold two tiny, cheeky girls still long enough to have their photo taken.

It made him smile even though it made him sad at the same time. It was an old photo but there weren't any others of the family all together and Jones wondered why that was. His brain had a habit of assuming that everyone had some sort of tragedy they were getting over. It made it easier to be nice, thinking that maybe they were working hard at being normal, the same as him. Unfortunately he'd discovered that some people (like Nathan Barley for one) were just spoilt children who didn't understand that they weren't entitled to whatever they wanted.

"... Yes, Mrs Ashcroft, of course I will..."

Jones perked up when he heard that name. He loved Dan's mum, she was a proper mum, he reckoned, and he really wanted to meet her one day, even if it meant going to Leeds. But the thought that she and Sasha were talking made him feel strangely anxious. He didn't like people talking about him, and he didn't really want Mrs Ashcroft knowing what'd been written about him, even if it wasn't true. He wanted her to think he was good enough to be going out with her son, not just some idiot kid who ended up the butt of a joke made by a trashy magazine.

"... I will tell him. Thank you again. Goodbye."

Sasha finished her call and put the receiver down with a satisfied breath. She smiled at Jones, and it was a genuinely excited smile too, the sort that made Jones smile along with her, even if he didn't know why they were supposed to be excited, but she didn't keep him waiting for long.

"Thank you for coming by, Jones," she told him, folding her hands neatly in front of her. "Dan's mum says hello, by the way. Couldn't he join you today?"

Jones looked at her perfect fingernails and slid his own hands between his thighs to hide his chipped and bitten nails from view.

"He didn't feel up to it, sorry," he replied, trying not to sound annoyed, because he wished Dan was here as well, instead of hiding in bed under the pretense that he'd overused his leg and needed the morning off before his doctor's appointment that afternoon.

"Hiding more like it," Sasha retorted and Jones huffed a small laugh through his nose, because she was right. "But I'm glad you're here," she continued. "I thought I should talk to you, because we've never really been introduced and Jonatton is flinging as many rumours around out there as he can, trying to take down the rest of us along with him as he burns. I'm sure he'll put out there at some point that Dan and I were involved or some such tripe, but I wanted you to know that it's not true. I wanted you to hear it from me that, yes, I was interested in Dan, but he never requited it."

Jones cleared his throat and looked down at the bracelets and beads that decorated his wrists, trying not to blush.

"I... don't actually know what that means, sorry."

"Oh," Sasha startled, blinking twice before regaining her composure. "Don't apologise! My dad used to say I spoke like a thesaurus, and my little sister calls me Hermione Granger to annoy me, it's my fault entirely."

Jones could tell she was smiling, her voice was warm and open, but he'd never been any good at telling whether people were taking the piss until it was too late, so he played it safe and kept his head down.

"Ok."

"Jones," she went on more gently. "What I meant was, Dan never showed me any interest in return. He and I worked together, occasionally we were at the same parties and things like that. I won't deny that he was the only person at SugarApe who I actually liked, and that I tried to indicate to him that I was single and interested. But," she paused, and Jones thought he hear a bit of melancholy creep into her tone. "We never did anything. You're a very lucky young man, Jones. Though, to be perfectly honest, Dan is probably a luckier man for having _you_."

Jones did look up then, and the sassiness of her expression made him think, bizarrely, of a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

"Thanks," he told her and she nodded in return.

"You're welcome. I also wanted you and Dan to know that we've put in an official complain to the Media Complains Council and that as of this morning SugaRape has virtually no companies willing to pay for advertising and only thirty percent of the staff it had on Friday."

She stopped, as if waiting for a response, but all Jones could think to say was: "Oh."

"Oh, indeed," she said, raising one eyebrow at him in a conspiratorial manner. "But I can't take all the credit. Most of it, but not all. I heard from Rufus and Ned (though how they got my mobile number I do not wish to know) that they were joining the 'Revolution.' Just like DJ Jones told them to."

"Oh." Jones couldn't stop himself from grinning at that and Sasha's own smile stretched just as wide.

"They've left the magazine to start up their own little business and, despite the fact that they're insufferable, I hope they do well at it."

"What're they going to do?" Jones asked. Despite her slightly haughty way of holding herself, Sasha was an expert story teller.

"They're starting a 'Make-Your-Own-Meme' website," she told him drolly. "Because someone told them to work for themselves and not 'the corporation' and to do the thing they love most in life." She gave him a pointed look. "And apparently what they love most in the whole wide world is the improper use of Photoshop."

Jones squeezed his eyes shut to try and stop the laughter but it was no good. It bubbled out of him like lemonade from a bottle of that'd been dropped on concrete.

"I like you," he giggled and Sasha seemed to preen at the compliment.

"I'm glad. I worried you wouldn't. Because Jonatton had me research who you were. I thought he wanted to write a piece on you but... well, that wasn't really the case was it."

Jones' laughter fizzled out at that. Not because Sasha had unwittingly helped Yeah? but because he didn't like the thought of her worrying over whether Jones liked her, and because he _hadn't_ liked her much, until just now.

"Will you get in trouble?"

Sasha gave him a strange look. It was the sort of look Dan gave him when Jones accidentally woke him during the night because he'd been thrashing about in his sleep in the grip of a nightmare. It wasn't an angry look. It was the sort of look that said: _'Aw...'_ and it never failed to make Jones embarrassed.

"No," she told him gently. "I won't get in trouble. Jonatton will though. Your boyfriend's mother is putting together a case of libel for the High Court." The sly grin was back on her face and Jones felt himself begin to blush at the fact that she had referred to his boyfriend. That was going to take time to get used to.

"Wow."

"What was that?"

"Um," Jones mumbled, twirling a lock of hair absently. "Boyfriend. Sounds weird. I've always just thought of him as... my Dan."

"That is incredibly sweet," Sasha murmured. "He really is a lucky man."

Jones felt himself get hot and itchy at those words. He was lucky to have Dan, not the other way round.

"Yours is good too," he said, trying to hide his smile.

"Indeed," Sasha agreed, shuffling some papers about on the desk. "He... he's trying very hard. I like him."

"You should tell him so," Jones said, standing and pulling his satchel back onto his shoulder. "He's well smitten."

"Perhaps," she said slowly.

Jones settled his headphones around his neck and looked down at the woman he'd thought was scary only half an hour ago and now reckoned wasn't that much different from him, just better at showing the world something they wanted to see, maybe.

"Thanks, Sasha," he said, offering his hand which she took in her own and shook firmly. "You're a good mate. I'll try to get Dan to come round and say hi, yeah?"

"Sure," she said softly, and Jones left the office with a grin on his face and a decent beat in his head.


	23. Chapter 23

Jonatton Yeah? grinned at the stack of memos waiting on his desk in Sasha's efficient and delightfully passive-aggressive hand writing. It had been eighty hours since the 'Death of a Preacher Man' issue (as he had titled it in his head) and it was already their best selling issue since Dan's 'Rise of the Idiots' article had been published. And it had made a lot of people quite angry, quite outraged. It had been a very enjoyable weekend.

Jonatton flung himself into his chair and let it spin and swivel him around the room. Outrage was good. Outrage sold magazines because deep down, people loved being angry and scandalised and incensed, etcetera. People loved a good scandal. And now he could sit back and bask in the heat of the emotional maelstrom he had caused, knowing that he had finally, well and truly crushed Dan Ashcroft.

He rolled his chair back to his desk and began flicking through the memos, literally flicking them about the room when he'd read them. Sasha, poor love, would have to pick them all up later. Not because it was her job but because she was obsessive about that sort of thing and working here, where she was basically surrounded by very large children who didn't know how to clean up after themselves, well that very nearly killed her. So Jonatton threw the notes across the room, smug in the knowledge that she would have to bend over in whatever tight skirt she was wearing today, knowing she was being watched but doing it through gritted teeth anyway.

She was another Dan and he'd get to work on her next. The magazine was going down, like a dinosaur in a tar pit, but he'd crack her before then, make her lose her temper and storm out. She would quit before the SugaRape died, Jonatton would make sure of it, and that would be another win for him and another big L on the foreheads of the pricks who thought they were so far above the regular people.

It was funny really, because for years he'd pondered why Dan and Sasha weren't an item, but it all made sense knowing that Dan was a gay. Maybe Sasha had known all along. He hadn't asked her about it before running the story, he didn't need actual 'sources', he was much better at making stuff up, but finding out the real name of the idiot DJ Jones had been a stroke of luck. Let it never be said that Jonatton Yeah? didn't know how to dig dirt. Or rather, get other people to dig dirt for him. And people were already calling the guy Choir Boy on the street, it was a masterpiece.

Turning his attention back to the memos he saw that there had been at least ten phone calls from concerned, and anonymous, members of the Stray community wishing to complain. They hadn't been happy with the article exposing their filthy little habits in the first place and now they were unhappy because if Dan was gay then it hadn't been an act of stray at all and they felt victimised and misrepresented all over again. It was hilarious.

Jonatton had to admit that Dan's attitude toward wanking off a random bloke had convinced even him that Dan was straight as a 2B but looking back at it, Ashcroft's disgust was probably centered more on the seediness of it all rather than any question of sexuality. Jonatton had wanted to make Dan uncomfortable and sick and it had been mission accomplished but apparently Dan's disgust hadn't been over touching another guy's junk, just the fact that it wasn't the junk of hit fit, young, DJ lover.

He threw the memos with the Stray complaints up into the air and let them float back down to earth like confetti, a celebration of a job well done, but the next note on his desk stole the grin right off his face, which was just not on, as far as Jonatton was concerned.

A representative from _Place_ had emailed. They were pulling their advertising because of the Ashcroft piece and were "deeply disappointed" whatever that meant. He turned to the next memo, and snarled at Sasha's handwriting informing him that she had contacted every single company with an advertising contract and offered them the opportunity to pull out of the magazine. The next six memos were confirmations that every single major advertiser had pulled out of SugaRape to escape being branded homophobic.

He scrunched each into a tight ball before hurling them about the room, but they all sailed to the ground before hitting anything, which was infuriating beyond belief. And then he came to Sasha's letter.

She'd typed it up but it had her rounded signature at the bottom of the page, and even an idiot could see at a glance that it was a letter of resignation. She'd left.

Jonatton felt the muscle by his left eye twitch. How dare that bitch realise she could, "do better". How dare she threaten to, "put him down like the sorry animal" he was. He took a deep, calming breath before folding the letter into a paper aeroplane and throwing it across the room and out through his office door. Perhaps things had gotten a little out of hand.

But at least he'd cracked Sasha. He'd been hoping for it, hadn't it? He was pissed that he wouldn't be able to watch her pick up his mess one last time but he'd won, even if she'd screwed him over and lost the magazine most of its income, he had still won. She was jobless and he'd driven her out.

He tried to smile but felt it turn into a snarl as he read the next memo cluttering up his desk. She'd put in a complain to the Media Complaints Commission. It was likely that they wouldn't do anything, freedom and the press and all that, but it was a serious move, all the same. Sasha was pulling punches and he was not impressed.

And now that she wasn't here he was going to have to look at his own fucking email, which was too droll for words. He looked out through his open office door as he waited for the stupid computer to load and frowned at the emptiness. He was pretty loose about what time people had to arrive in the morning, because being a stickler for time made you a slave to the clock and he'd built up SugaRape to be the force it was based on a belief that he didn't give a fuck and not giving a fuck was cool.

People thought Dan Ashcroft dictated what was cool and what wasn't around Shoreditch but Dan didn't have a clue. Dan hated cool and the only times he didn't speak out against it was when he was too crushed and depressed by his own ineffectiveness that he just gave up. Jonatton had been the real mastermind. He'd sourced the Preacherman costume for Nathan, he'd tweaked most of Dan's articles and guided Rufus in the layouts so that Dan's words seemed ironic, so that his hatred came off as an inside joke. He'd put Dan's name on articles that made Dan look like a sell-out. He'd worked hard to pull as many strings as possible. And he'd held on fucking tight. So why did it suddenly feel like things were unravelling?

He wandered out into the main office area and did a slow circle in the middle of the room, pouting at the lack of moronic anarchy. The tiny tricycles were still, the pinball machine was silent and dark in the corner. Rufus's and Ned's desks were clean.

Jonatton stopped. Rufus and Ned had been hired because they were halfway decent at what they did but very easy to mould and manipulate. They were idiots. In fact, Jonatton had watched Dan writing his 'Rise of the Idiots' piece whilst glaring at Ned and Rufus competing over who could wear the most most tiny trilby hats at once. He'd typed so hard he'd broken the 's' key on his computer and Jonatton had taken great delight in charging him for the damage. It had been doubly amusing to see Dan drowning his sorrows in cheap beer and cigarettes at the Nailgun that evening, and trying unsuccessfully to ignore the fact that Ned and Rufus were trying to put a neon striped, half-sized, trilby on his shaggy head.

Ned and Rufus were not the sort of men to tidy their desks. He walked closer and saw that even the statuette of the farting gnome and doctored photos of Dan as the Preacherman, slaying the pig of ignorance, were gone. Which probably boded ill, or something.

He sat back down at his own desk and clicked on the email icon. There were hundreds of emails in there that he'd never bothered to read but the top five were letters of resignation from other former employees of SugaRape.

Jonatton tried to stop his eyes widening as he read through them because he did not do surprised or emotional but they kept doing it, whenever he opened the next email on the list and saw that he'd been deserted by yet another twat who thought that they suddenly had a conscience and that they needed to do whatever they thought Dan Ashcroft wanted them to do.

There were other emails too. Two club DJs had written in to say that they were also gay and intended to do everything in their power to publicly shame him and the magazine. 15Peter20 had written, threatening to do a series of photographs of celebrities defecating on copies of the offending SugaRape issue as a form of protest, which would have been funny at any other time except that Jonatton was starting to feel slightly uncomfortable at how many people had come out in support of Dan.

Then there were the threats from fans of the DJ, Jones. As far as Jonatton could tell, the guy was an Idiot, the kind that Dan hated and was worshipped by. He made shit music and was loved by the kinds of people who had UV tattoos and stretched ears. He made Euro-twat techno that people only thought was cool because it was played in Amsterdam. Fuck knew why Dan was fucking him, but the kid seemed to have some serious fans, and they were threatening to do serious damage to the SugaRape offices and Jonatton's person.

They were idiots. Just like Dan's 'loyal' followers. Just like his former employees. Just like Dan himself, even if he refused to see it. And Jonatton hated idiocy. Irony he was cool with. Laughing at the foolish for their misunderstanding of true cool was cool etc. But idiots, idiots had given Shoreditch a bad name, and made people sneer at his work and Jonatton hated all of it. He'd got his revenge by owning the idiots, dictating to them, ruling them and laughing at them while pretending he couldn't even be bothered to say LOL.

SugarApe had been his baby. First, the Idiots who read it and made it had been his apes, his monkeys, who would mimic whatever he did and wrote in exchange for the sugar he gave them, the false reassurance that they were part of the cool crowd and yet totally unique at the same time. And then, once he had them, he'd fucked them all over, and they hadn't even realised it was non-con. That had been his private little joke in changing from SugarApe to SugaRape. No one had understood, and he'd been able to pat himself on the back and know, without the shadow, that he was the smartest dick in the room.

Except that now the room was empty and more silent than he'd ever heard it on a Monday afternoon. And his magazine was all but dead, and no one seemed to understand the art of the trashy magazine as an ironic symbol, or that they were supposed to be laughing at people like Barley and pitying fools like Ashcroft. No one understood that they were supposed to be grateful for everything he'd done for them!

And now, the Idiots were winning.

No. The Idiots had won.

Almost.


	24. Chapter 24

Jonatton Yeah? didn't really give a toss who Dan Ashcroft was screwing, he just wanted the idiot to finally understand that he, Jonatton, was the winner, and Dan was the loser. That's all it was ever supposed to be. But he had friends who did mind. London was progressive, sure, but there were still plenty of people who still thought that Gay Bashing was a damn fine sport. People who'd quietly supported David Copeland. People who were now busy protesting the proposed 'Civil Partnership Act', as if it would ever actually get passed. He scrolled through his phone to 'Pete the Ham' and ran his tongue along his teeth as he grinned. It didn't take long to text his old school mate the address of 'The House of Jones' as he made his way there himself.

The plan was simple enough: spray paint the front of the guy's house, throw a few rocks through the windows. Pete'd brought some friends and he'd told them to push the whole pedophilia line with the graffiti. They had been happy enough to oblige because, "all poofs are pedos", or so they told him as they got to work.

And Jonatton just had to stand on the other side of the lane, with a drink and a smoke in hand, and watch as they got on with it. He'd provided beer of course, but other than that he had no intention of getting his own hands dirty. He was an editor after all, not a lackey.

He laughed as another rock pelted through a window, hoping it had the good fortune to smash the idiot DJ's decks. The street was empty except for an old tramp, hiding behind some bins and pretending he didn't exist so that he wouldn't get a kicking, so Jonatton relaxed and sipped his beer, trying to imagine the look on Dan's face when he saw what'd been done to his precious, little, hovel. Would it be the kicked puppy face? the blank stare of complete brain failure? the whole face grimace that reminded Jonatton of a man being hit in the gnads by a fast moving football? Dan didn't actually have that many different facial expressions, and even though they were subtle, they were easy enough to read, if you were as smart as Jonatton Yeah? obviously.

His phone rang, or rather, cawed, to signal to him that his dealer was calling. He loved introducing people to his dealer by gesturing to the crow. Even when it was obvious that the dealer was actually Nadja, standing behind the crow, rather than the bird itself. People were idiots and thought he was cool for having a crow as his drug dealer - they didn't get the irony or the symbolism - most of the mentally crippled people he had to associate with didn't even know how to spell irony, let alone accurately define it. Even Dan hadn't got it. It was a triumph, except that Dan hadn't understood that he'd been bested. Again.

He took the call, and was glad for it. Nadja had his stuff, and about time too, but she'd bumped his order up to 40mg. She was a doll. She understood what he was about, not like the usual plebs, and he rubbed his hand across the inside of his elbow as he programmed his meeting with her into his phone for that evening.

He took another drag on his cigarette and closed his eyes. Things were not going as well as he'd hoped - he'd need to be looking for a new job soon - but there was something delicious about orchestrating an act as juvenile as vandalising someone's home. It gave him a rush. It was a shame they hadn't brought eggs and loo roll, really to make a proper job of it. Rocks and spray paint would just have to do.

He heard another window smash, followed by a cheer, and chuckled. But the cheering was cut short by a yell and he opened his eyes in annoyance.

"Oi!"

The sneer fell from Jonatton's face. He hadn't expected Jones to be home so soon. He worked at that hairdressers, didn't he? But the skinny twerp was running down the street with a face like fury, running toward the four large men who were full of cheap lager and hate. And they were grinning to each other and snickering in a way that suddenly made Jonatton feel distinctly uncomfortable. Jones looked too small, too breakable, coming face to face with blokes who prided themselves on their ability to properly fill out their rugby jerseys.

He started to edge further down the street, away from the action, but he didn't get far, his eyes were glued to the scene, incapable of looking away as the DJ strode toward the vandalised house, demanding an explanation and received a fist in the face instead. It was like a film - not one of Barley's shaking camera, prank verging on assault type films - but like something choreographed. He could almost hear the background music, and the sound of Pete's knuckles colliding with the DJ's nose was far too loud. The world seemed to slow down and Jonatton felt, suddenly, like the blood was being syphoned from his body. He watched Jones get in a punch of his own before being overwhelmed by the four men Jonatton had encouraged in their hate. This was not what he'd planned.

Jonatton tried to run but stumbled instead. He couldn't remember how many beers he'd had. Surely it hadn't been that many, yet he was stumbling all over the footpath like a bum. He heard the thud of a boot hitting flesh and felt like he might vomit. He'd only wanted to win.

It was all Dan's fault. No matter what happened to him, things always turned out well for Dan. He never had to deal with any proper repercussions for his shitty actions or the way he treated people. His humiliation never lasted and people loved him regardless of how drunk he got, how much of a twat he was, how much he insulted the people who looked out for him and adored him. And now, because _he_ was a fucking fag, Jonatton's magazine was down the plug hole. All because of Dan.

He heard a moan among the thuds but didn't turn around. He took out his phone, his fingers shaking and his vision suddenly blurred and uneven, and beat his thumb against the nine key three times before hitting the call button as hard as he could.

_"__999, what is the nature of your emergency?"_

Jonatton hesitated, lowering the phone and staring at it, as if somehow it would be able to give him the answer to his moral dilemma. As if fucking technology could ever be that fucking useful. The shit was really going to hit the fan now. If he called this in, there was no going back. He hadn't actually _done_ anything. But he'd still probably be charged with something. He wouldn't be able to find a new job, not in journalism anyway.

_"__Hello? Please state the nature of your emergency?"_

"I-" Jonatton brought the phone back up to his ear. "Ambulance. Possibly police," he told the voice at the other end.

_"__Ok. Are you able to tell me more about what's going on?"_

She sounded so condescending Jonatton almost hung up on her but he could still see Jones, lying on the concrete, and his face was a bloody mess.

"A bloke's getting beaten up," he said tersely. "Wellington Row. Shoreditch. There's four blokes on him and he's... not doing so well. Etcetera. I have to go now."

He didn't wait to hear what the silly cow would try to tell him. He'd given them enough information and he couldn't stick around any longer. Pete and his mates were already getting bored now that their victim wasn't moving. Two were already back to throwing bottles at the front door, which now read "House of Hoes" instead of "Jones". The ambulance would arrive and scare them off. They might not even be able to trace the call back to him, he really didn't know how the technology worked anyway. But it was definitely time to go.

He typed a hurried text to Nadja, rescheduling their 'catch-up' from the evening to right now and then ran, trying to pretend he couldn't hear Pete calling after him, asking where he was going. Hoping like hell they wouldn't follow him once they were done with what was left of Tom 'Jones' Pearce. He needed to shoot up, he needed a drink, he needed to stop the shaking that was taking over his body and that seemed to be coming from within his bones. He needed to black out for a while... because he felt like an idiot.


	25. Chapter 25

**For Worriedeye, cos I promised her I'd do it quick so she doesn't have to wait.**

* * *

><p><em>The beat was pounding, pulsing through his veins like oxygen, and Jones looked out at the crowd, a blur of colour and movement, jumping and swaying in time to the sounds that were pouring forth from his brain. It was a kind of madness, he knew, the noise and music he heard and saw and felt that other people didn't, but as long as he could use it keep himself afloat, and make people happy, it didn't really matter. As long as Dan didn't mind and smiled at him when he pointed out the way bird sound was soft and yet always louder than the traffic noise as long as you had your eyes closed, it was fine. <em>

_He looked out at the heaving club but could no longer make out any particular face in the mass of people, they were just a moving haze of skin and hair and clothes and suddenly Jones felt his chest tighten. _

_He needed to find Dan. Dan had come along tonight, to see him DJ, and Jones desperately wanted to know that Dan liked what he was hearing, that he didn't think Jones' music was shit or childish or worse, boring. He flicked some switched, changed the levels, and amped up the bass line as he let the next track bleed in. It had a dark, pulsing beat and reminded Jones of foreplay when you were drunk on red wine, all heavy breathing and stained lips, hip bones pushing against thighs and leaving bruises that would last 'til the morning as tiny reminders of the black and purple desperation you were feeling in that moment. _

_He tried to balance his levels, get the timing perfect, but something was wrong. There was a static that he couldn't seem to get rid of, feedback buzzing through the speakers and ruining the mix and the crowd, which had been a bright, golden sort of smudge in front of his eyes, was turning dark, like smears of umber and grey and the movement looked less like dancing now and more like a storm rolling in, rolling toward him._

_He pulled back from the decks, tugging to get his fingers free from a surface that was suddenly tacky like old gum against his skin. He searched the room again, his eyes going to the bar and the spot where Dan should have been but wasn't, and felt his throat tighten. He stumbled off the stage, tripping on the stairs that were at once too long and too short, trying to get to the exit without getting near the faceless crowd that loomed over him. _

_The air was thick, like campfire smoke, and it made his lungs seize up and he wanted to cough, but there was something blocking his throat and mouth and he couldn't get breath in or out. He backed up against the wall of the club but the simple movement caused his back to explode in pain and he tried to gasp but couldn't and stars the colour of gun metal and rust began to dart in front of his eyes while his neck felt so hot it burned but his chest was cold and prickling with goose bumps and he wanted to sob but there was still the invisible something in his throat, choking and suffocating._

_He crept his hand along the wall, knowing the door was there somewhere, desperately feeling for the wooden frame and worn, metal handle that would get him out of this place and away from the wall of heaving bodies that were getting bigger and closing in and made him want to scream. _

_He could barely see now. His eyelids were shutting themselves, even as he tried to force them to stay open, and what was left of his vision was filled with the angry, cinereal sparks, darting about in front of him like flies in an alley. His face was throbbing, his own music drumming into his skull and hurting him, forcing him hard against the brickwork and causing his back to twitch in pain. _

_He needed to find Dan. He needed to get to the door. Hot tears were spilling down his face and he'd never felt so scared in his life and, oh god, he was wet all over. Sweat or piss or tears, he couldn't tell, and the door wasn't there!_

_A beeping started, blasting out from his decks, making his heart jump and stutter and it hurt, oh god, it hurt. But then he heard another sound. It was faint, it was barely there, but with his eyes tight shut he could hear it, like bird song._

_"__Jones! Jonesy! It's alright. I'm here!"_

_"__Dan?"_

* * *

><p>Jones felt his body jolt and another streak of pain went through him but his back didn't hit brick, like he expected it to. There was a mattress beneath him, and a pillow under his head but he still couldn't breathe, or see properly and the room was a fog of pale blues and odd, unfocused light. But Dan's voice was clear, <em>that<em> at least was real and solid and when he felt long fingers squeeze his hand he let out a relieved laugh that made his throat spasm around the tube inside it.

"Jonesy?" Dan whispered hoarsely, and Jones tried to follow the sound and focus his eyes on the blurred, brown shape that he knew was his Dan. "You awake? Jones?"

He tried to answer but the tube made him gag and the harsh beeping started up again and he felt panic rising.

"Calm down, Jonesy," Dan whispered, cutting through the fear like cream through coffee. "You're ok, you're... you... Christ, don't ever do this to me again, you little shit," Dan huffed and Jones tried to squeeze Dan's fingers. He hated to think that Dan was sad because of him. "Don't... I'm not good at this, Jones. When it was me in here, you got things done. I can't even talk to the nurses without tearing up like a big girl. It's just..."

Jones tried to focus his eyes again. Dan was running the pad of his thumb back and forth across Jones' knuckles and his voice was rough and tired and so _broken_, Jones just wanted to hug him, but he really couldn't move. He slid his tongue sluggishly against the tube in his mouth. Even swallowing around it hurt, talking was out of the question. He had to concentrate on not gagging around it and it was a shock to realise that it seemed to be doing most of the breathing for him. There was something in his nose too, and tape and wires everywhere. It was strange and he didn't like the feeling of being invaded by so many pieces of equipment but tried to focus on the brush of Dan's thumb instead.

He could see Dan more clearly now, that nose was hard to miss, and Dan's hair was sticking up all over his head, like he'd been dragged backwards through a hedge, and not in a stylish way. He had his back to the light, so Jones couldn't see his eyes (no surprise there, a voice in his head whispered, and he couldn't stop the slow, half-smile that flitted across his face) but he could make out his general shape. Dan's shoulders were hunched and tense and he looked very much like he was about to start doing that silent crying thing that scared Jones more than any nightmare his brain could conjure up.

Dan leaned forward to brush a stray lock of lank hair away from Jones' face, so careful that Jones barely felt it and it was a long moment before it clicked in his head that Dan's hands were both free. His cast was gone. He tried to ask about it but all he could produce was a gurgle.

"It's alright, Jonesy," Dan mumbled, pressing a rough kiss to Jones' forehead, his voice cracking again. "Well, no, it's not alright, it's all a bit... shit, actually... but you're going to be ok. I promise."

He leaned in so that Jones could finally see him clearly, even though his eyes were still watery and a little unfocused. Dan looked the way he used to look in the days when he would spend the entire night drinking, forgoing sleep in favour of beer and self-loathing before heading back to work without a shower or even clean clothes. His shirt was so rumpled Jones wondered if it was actually on inside out and his face was stubbled and dry and tired. His eyes, small but always so sharp, were red and swollen and Jones felt a tear slide down the side of his face and into his hair at the thought of Dan upset and alone.

He opened his mouth but Dan shook his head and wiped the tear track from Jones' face with the back of a finger.

"Don't try to talk. They got you in the throat. Broken ribs too, and... but the doctor says you're going to be fine, eventually. And I swear you're getting the best service this place can provide. Not because I'm paying them anything, just, all the nurses remember you and they're clucking around you like a brood of mother hens."

He sniffed and looked away but Jones squeezed his hand. He couldn't talk or move and he hated that Dan was suffering on his own, trying to be a proper, stoic man about it all, when really he needed a good old cry.

Jones tried to shift his hips but a sudden burst of pain stopped him and he let out a gurgling moan as his lower back began to throb like an obnoxious beat from a dodgy backing track. Dan was on his feet in a moment and there was someone else there too, fiddling with his wrist, plugging something in, clicking, twisting, and telling him gently that he would be fine in a minute. She was right too. Jones felt his body begin to relax, turning warm like caramel fudge. His eyes began to droop but he didn't want to fall asleep. He wanted to be with Dan and make him feel better. But his body had gone fuzzy and sleepy and Dan was brushing gently at his hair again and whispering to him quietly, so the nurse wouldn't hear.

"God, I love you, Jones. I'm sorry. I'm... I love you. It'll be alright... They got the shit heads that did it, that-" he sniffed. "They're out on bail, though, so... and I thought... My parents have a house, a little place on the coast... Hornsea... and I thought, when you get out of here, I thought... D'you feel like taking a holiday, Jonesy? 'Cos I think I... London's lost some of it's hold on me and... I think I'd quite like a break. And my mum says she'll pay for our train tickets."

Jones smiled at Dan's attempt at a casual tone. He could see how hard Dan was trying to hold it together, the way this throat was moving, his adam's apple bobbing up and down with all the other words he couldn't get out, and a voice like cigar smoke. He couldn't get the smile to stay in place though, it slid away like melting ice cream off a spoon and he couldn't even nod. He tried to tell Dan with his eyes that a holiday sounded good, that he loved Dan back, that he was sure it was going to be ok, but he wasn't sure that Dan got it.

He mouthed 'I love you' around the tube but it just made Dan's whole face crumple and he hid it in his large hands, one of which was strapped and pale from it's weeks in plaster.

Jones tried to focus on that fact, to try and slot the events from the last day, or days, back into order. Monday morning Dan had been in bed when he left for work. Dan hadn't wanted to get up before his appointment with the doctor but had said he was going to have a shave before he went so that he looked a bit presentable. He'd offered to help Dan shave but Dan'd been adamant that he'd be fine. He was perfectly capable of shaving his own face. Now he looked like his face hadn't seen a blade for almost a week.

There had been a chance he'd get the cast off, Jones remembered now, in favour of strapping and a sling. Jones hadn't been sure it was a good idea but Dan had been keen to get the thing off. He had a bruise on his forehead from where he kept trying brush his hair away - and from trying to cover his eyes when he was about to orgasm - and he wanted the thing gone. He was still going to have the leg cast on for a few more weeks and that was the one they really needed to keep an eye on.

Jones had finished early, because it was a Monday and Stanley Knives was open on Monday mornings to deal with weekend hair emergencies but shut at one pm. He'd dropped in to see Sasha, grabbed a coffee, and then had begun to head back home, dawdling because he knew Dan wouldn't be back yet. Then he'd seen those blokes throwing rocks through his windows, and he'd seen...

"Jonatton," he tried to whisper but coughed weakly instead.

Dan's head shot up at the sound though, and Jones willed him to understand.

"What?"

"Jonatton," he mouthed, not bothering to make any sound and putting his remaining energy into getting his lips to work properly.

"Jonatton?" Dan whispered back and Jones did his best to nod. "Was he- He was there? When you got..."

Jones gave the barest of nods. He could feel the painkillers pulling him back down into sleep but it was ok now. Dan's face didn't look so crushed and hopeless any more, he looked determined. Absolutely furious, but determined too. Dan always needed something to do or think about so that he didn't lose himself in his hatred of the world and humanity in general. Jones just hoped he didn't do anything stupid.


	26. Chapter 26

Claire stared. It was hard not to really, everyone who walked past their seats stared at the two men facing each other on the train, each taking up a row of three, looking like soldiers returning home from the trenches, and so involved in their conversation - and each other - that they didn't even notice that they were being watched.

Claire hadn't wanted to come. She'd been ready to fight her mum over it, absolutely sure she wouldn't be welcome, but Pingu had pointed out, quietly, that Dan and Jones would probably, definitely, need help with their luggage, and getting on and off the train, and getting a taxi to her parents' house. So Claire had grudgingly agreed to accompany her brother and his boyfriend to Leeds, but she only planned to stay a few days.

Pingu had packed for them both and Claire had been a bit shocked because he wasn't the kind of person to usually make those sorts of assumptions. Then he'd mentioned that he'd talked to her mother, who had invited him as well, and Claire had wondered how a woman as busy as her mum, in another city, could still be keeping them all in order which such ease.

He was sitting opposite her now - her Pingu, her Harry - but he wasn't staring at anyone. He was engrossed in a new game on his Game Boy Advance, headphones on and a look of intense concentration on his face. It had used to confuse her, Pingu's obsession with computer games, but now it brought a smile to her face.

He'd explained, haltingly, shyly, that plugging into a game helped when he couldn't deal with social interactions and stimulations in the real world. In games he could control things like volume and brightness and who and what he had to interact with, and he could focus on one thing, rather than feeling overwhelmed by all the noises and idiots that he had to deal with the rest of the time.

Video games made Claire frustrated but to Harry they were like meditating, even when they were scary or made him jump.

Claire smiled again. He was still Pingu when he was plugged into one of his games, but she was starting to think of him more and more as Harry when they were together. Harry was insightful, in a quiet and thoughtful way, and _Harry_ was the man she would soon be introducing to her parents. And while on one hand that was absolutely terrifying, it made her feel a flutter of nervous excitement too.

She wondered if Dan was feeling the same way. Probably not, since Jones had been in contact with their mum for years, and any shock she or their father might have felt at Dan and Jones' relationship probably paled into insignificance when compared with everything else going on in her brother's life.

She glanced across again and found she couldn't look away. Dan had that quiet smile on his face and it made his whole demeanor change. He was entirely focused on Jones, his body language was completely open to the younger man, and it made Claire wish that she was the sort of woman who got teary over other people's sentimentality. She pursed her lips instead and took a good, hard look at her brother.

He was tapping his fingers on a case of CDs (one of several that he and Jones had brought with them), his wrist in a brace that was barely noticeable under his loose shirt, but that occasionally made him wince when he tried to wave his arm about as he spoke. His leg, in a new cast, was propped up across the two seats next to him, beside an elegant, dark wood cane. He'd be going to St James' Hospital while they were staying in Leeds, to have "a bit of a procedure" as he kept telling her, which was his way of avoiding the fact that he needed a pin put into his leg. He'd overdone things and the bone wasn't healing as well as it should be, but Dan refused to make a fuss of it, or let anyone even think that looking after Jones had caused his leg to be permanently damaged. She wondered how Jones felt about it.

Jones' own leg was in a heavy brace over his trousers and his cane was fitted with an arm brace as well. He had enough metal in his leg to make the pin Dan needed seem insignificant, and Claire knew that there were pins in Jones' sternum and shoulder as well. His face and neck were still bruised, and he didn't really look ready to be out of hospital.

In fact, he'd gone straight from the hospital to the train station because Dan didn't want him seeing their home still covered in graffiti, with boarded up windows. But despite the fact that his breathing was stilted and the tightness of his eyes gave away the pain he was in, sitting on the barely padded train seat, Jones was smiling as well.

"Now I remember why we shouldn't play this game," Dan rumbled and Jones let out a breathy laugh in response. "We keep getting stuck on S."

"Not my fault so many bands names end in S," Jones shrugged, leaning himself carefully against the wall by the window. "Name a band or concede defeat."

"Fine," Dan huffed, even as he smiled at Jones like he might devour him. "Bloody... Spice Girls. Hah! Another S for you. Let's see how you go with that."

"Spice Girls?" Jones asked with a smirk. "Is that what you've been listening to while I've been out of it? Is this what happens when I'm not around to guide your musical tastes?"

"You?" Dan shot back, trying not to laugh while Jones grinned at him, daring him to be the one to crack. "Guide my tastes? I don't think so. You're musical tastes were honed by reading my music reviews, you young whipper-snapper. And don't you forget it."

Jones gave another breathy laugh but winced when his ribs protested and the smile dropped from Dan's face in an instant. Claire thought she really might cry then. In all the time she'd known them, she'd thought of them as barely friends. They were tactile with each other but they rarely acted lovey-dovey and even now she hadn't seen them actually kiss. But the care they had for each other was obvious.

Her film studies teacher had told her class that the camera picked up the subtleties of the human face and magnified them, which was why acting for the stage and acting for the screen were such different disciplines, and that a good filmmaker learned to see those subtle movements and emotions too, and to use them. Watching the way Dan and Jones mirrored each other's movements and body language, the way their worry for each other was written in their eyes and the line of their lips - it made Claire feel like she finally understood what her lecturer had been trying to say. Dan and Jones didn't hold hands much or call each other by sickly sweet pet names but that didn't mean they didn't show their affection in everything they did.

"Silverchair," Jones said, smiling again, but carefully, and Dan rolled his eyes as he realised he had to continue with their game of 'Name a band beginning with...' which had already lasted over an hour.

"Ramones," Dan shot back and Jones made a face.

"Sinead O'Connor."

"Rolling Stones."

"Now who's doing S ones on purpose!" Jones said in mock outrage, his voice high and croaky, but Dan just poked his tongue out and Claire had to turn away to hide the laugh that escaped her nose at seeing her grumpy, world-weary brother do something so juvenile and innocent in public.

"Give up?" Dan teased but Jones shook his head and grinned.

"System of a Down."

"Naked Lunch."

"You old perv. Um... H... Hunters and Collectors."

"You fucker."

Jones pulled two juice boxes out of the backpack sitting on the floor between them and stuck a straw in one with the kind of smile that said he was about to be seriously cheeky and Claire tried to keep watching whilst pretending to be engrossed by an old newspaper someone had left on the seat next to her.

"That's not a band," Jones said before taking a long, noisy slurp through his straw. "And it don't start with S."

"Smiths."

"You said them already."

"Fuck."

"Gonna give up. Gonna cede to the champion and accept that you have to give me my prize?"

Claire didn't know what the prize was, and by the way Jones was smiling and Dan was blushing she was fairly certain she didn't want to know. She couldn't even imagine how the two of them planned to have any sort of sex life considering their large collection of broken bones but the way they were making eye contact seemed to indicate fairly clearly that they intended to have a damn good go at it.

Dan reached across and plucked the second juice box from Jones' hand and poked his own straw through with a pop that somehow managed to sound triumphant.

"Split Enz," he said with a smirk and laughed when Jones' jaw dropped.

"Z? you're leaving me with Z? You prat, you're supposed to let me win, I'm an invalid. You promised to take care of me."

"Oh, I will," Dan said, giving Jones a look that made his eyes widen and a furious blush appear on his cheeks. "I promise you that, Jonesy. I will take very good care of you. But, I win."

Jones didn't respond but his chest was heaving and he was gazing at Dan in a way that Claire could only describe as lustful. She turned her attention back to the newspaper she had been pretending to read because watching Dan make promises of a sexual nature wasn't something she should want to witness. And she'd started blushing as well. Older brothers were not supposed to be sexy. That was just gross.

One glance down at the paper, however, made her wish she'd kept on watching the two men flirt, and she scowled down at the headline. It was an old paper and the story had never made the front page, but the sorry end to SugaRape had been news for a while and she hated being reminded of it.

They'd expected the libel case to drag on for months but a few days after Jones had been assaulted Dan had stormed over to Jonatton's apartment to confront him and had found his body instead. It had been an overdose, that was the official cause of death, but people had whispered that it was really suicide (when they thought Dan couldn't hear) and it had left Dan horribly shaken.

Claire had been furious, because it didn't seem fair that the person who had done everything in his power to ruin Dan's life, who almost destroyed her relationship with her brother, who'd set a bunch of thugs on Jones and then, according to all accounts, fled the scene, should get out of his punishment by dying. He was supposed to get what he deserved, he was supposed to pay, and they were supposed to get revenge. She had wanted to see his face when he was finally called out for being a lying, manipulative scumbag. Overdosing on vodka and heroin - slipping painlessly into a coma and then out of life altogether - just wasn't fair. She'd raged about it and had expected Dan to join her but instead he'd curled up on the sofa and hadn't even stirred when Harry covered him in a blanket and stuck a pillow under his head.

He'd stayed at Claire and Harry's that night and Claire had walked out in the morning to find him sitting on the sofa, staring at his little box of anti-depressant pills, turning it over and over in his hands, with an expression on his face that she just couldn't figure out.

She didn't know what to do so went to the kitchen and came back with a glass of water and when she'd put it down on the coffee table in front of him, Dan'd looked up at her with eyes that were red and sore and closer to tears than she'd probably ever seen him. Then he'd said thank you, and taken his medication and called their mum.

SugaRape was sent into liquidation. The lawyers had descended and the libel charges had been settled without anyone setting foot in court. Claire didn't know how much Dan and Jones had won in the end but they were going to be living at the Ashcroft's cottage in Hornsea for at least a few months and they had enough to get by without worrying about income while they healed. She hoped there was more than that, but she didn't want to ask.

The papers had focused on the drugs and sex and scandal, the hedonistic lifestyle of Shoreditch socialites and the dangers of party drugs and 'alternative lifestyles'. Mostly it was sensationalism and scaremongering but there had been a few pieces written that mentioned Jones, and what had actually happened. Not many, but a few. Claire wished there could have been a proper happy ending to write about but real life didn't often end neatly or happily.

She looked out of the window and realised that the scenery had started to get very familiar. They'd be there soon, and as happy as she was to be seeing her parents again, Claire was nervous. There was so much that'd changed so quickly, so much that'd happened, and she wasn't entirely sure that she felt ready to discuss it with anyone, even her mum, even Dan, and most of it had happened to him, not her.

"... You'll be ok, Jones. Hey, look at me. Mr Jones. Jonesy, it'll be alright."

Claire glanced up at the change in Dan's voice and saw that Jones was holding tight to his seat and breathing hard and fast through his nose.

"I'm sorry. Sorry. But what if they don't like me?" he whispered and Dan leaned forward to cup Jones' cheek in his palm.

"How could they not?" Dan's voice was low and smooth and Jones rubbed his face against the hand on his cheek but still didn't look up. "Jones, my mum already likes you better than she likes me, or Claire. You've got nothing to worry about."

"And your dad?"

"My dad-" Dan sighed, but Claire was curious to see what he would say. "My dad lives in a world of statistics and equations. He refuses to take trains because of statistical dangers. He works on unsolvable math problems for fun and if my mother didn't get most of their meals delivered he'd live on grilled cheese. He is a kind and loving man but he's also the most forgetful and vague person I've ever met."

"But-"

"Tell him your theory about sound as raindrops and the splatter effect. He'll love it. And you."

Jones nodded and gave a smile, but didn't look up.

"Jones?"

"Sorry."

"Please don't-" Dan started to say through clenched teeth and Claire watched in surprise as he stopped himself and started the sentence again. "Sorry. I know me telling you to stop doesn't actually help. Just... gentle breaths, ok? Your bones are still butterfly wings, remember? Don't go breaking them or I'll be the one who gets in trouble. Alright?"

Jones nodded then looked up and gave Dan a watery smile.

"Thanks, Dan," he whispered with a sniff and Dan nodded. "Oh, and, Dan?"

"Hmm?"

"ZZ Top."

"What?" Dan's brow creased in confusion but Jones just grinned.

"They're a band. ZZ Top. Starts with Z. You can still be the winner though. If you like."

Dan narrowed his eyes but Claire could see how hard he was working to stop himself from smiling.

"You little... tit box."


	27. Chapter 27

Jones looked across the table at Dan's mum. Over the years he'd tried to picture what she might look like. Dan hadn't brought any photographs with him when he'd moved to London because, well, that was Dan - even if he did now carry a polaroid photograph of Jones in his wallet - when he'd been young and had first moved away from home he hadn't seen the point in carting around pictures of his parents and annoying, little sister. So Jones had never seen a photo of Mrs Ashcroft.

Now, looking at her, Jones could see where Dan got his looks from. Claire looked like her dad, in a good way, but Dan's jawline and cheekbones were all his mother's. As were the curls. He'd tried to imagine her as short or tall, but could never decide and now it turned out she was the same height as Jones and even in her early sixties she was one of the most striking women he'd ever seen.

But she could be pretty damned scary, too.

Pingu, Harry as they were all now calling him, had spent the first hour dropping things and breaking things and apologising with his eyes on the floor, until Mrs Ashcroft had suggested he might like to go and visit Claire and Dan's father in his study. Claire had blanched like it was a punishment but it turned out that Harry Pingu and Roger Ashcroft got on like a house on fire. A very quite fire, but still. Claire had escaped the house under the pretense of taking a walk around the neighbourhood and then it had been Dan, Jones and Dan's mum.

* * *

><p><em>"<em>_My name is Catherine, love, you can call me that or you can call me mum, but if I hear you call me Mrs Ashcroft again, I'll..." She looked Jones up and down and sighed. _

_Jones knew he looked a sight. He'd been helped out of his parka when they got into the house because Dan's parents were the sort to have the house heated to a steady twenty-six degrees all year round and he couldn't have kept it on, but he felt vulnerable in just his jeans and the old, ripped and faded t-shirt Dan had dressed him in that morning. The dressing on his shoulder was visible, and the one on his chest pressed against the fabric, plus the leg brace was on full show, and he felt like a failed attempt at a cyborg. _

_"__Sorry, Catherine." he mumbled but it just made her sigh again._

_"__Oh, don't be like that. I won't actually do anything to you, love. Look at you. I did threaten to smack Daniel around the ears if he made you cry again. Has he?"_

_"__What?"_

_"__Has he made you cry? Say the word and he'll feel his mother's palm."_

_"__Mum!"_

_Jones couldn't help laughing at that because mums were supposed to be sensible and Dan looked scandalised, and because he was nervous and laughing was way better than crying._

_"__That's better," she told him and Jones ducked his head to hide his blush._

_"__You're a right laugh, Cathy," he told her as she moved around to the kitchen to pour the tea, pointing at them both to sit at the table. "But don't hit Dan. We'd both fall apart like a couple of Kinder toys."_

_"__All right, dear," she'd told him with a nod and a wink. "For you."_

_Dan had shaken his head and looked rather disgruntled until his mother brought over his tea. It was proper Earl Grey, in a cup and saucer, with fancy biscuits that looked homemade but were just stupidly expensive sitting delicately on the side._

_Jones had laughed at the excitement in Dan's eyes but had to admit it was good tea. Even the steam felt especially nice against his cheeks. And Dan's mum kept giving them both more and more biscuits, telling them they needed fattening up, which was a bit genius._

_"__Claire told me you'd put on weight, Dan," she said behind her tea cup. "But I don't see it."_

_"__I had," Dan told her. "But then Jones disposed of my booze."_

_Jones chuckled at that but he had to admit that Dan had lost weight. He didn't think it was all down to their new, alcohol free lifestyle either. He was pretty sure Dan'd been eating very little while Jones was in hospital. There hadn't been any money coming in and Dan's cooking skills were limited to pot noodle and reheating last night's take-out. Without the take-out Dan's diet had been pretty restricted._

_"__Well you're both too skinny," Cathy told them. "You need protein to rebuild your muscles. When you head out to Hornsea next month I hope you'll remember to eat properly. I don't want to find out you've been living off fish and chips."_

_Jones had hidden his grin in his own tea cup while Dan griped and moaned at his mother's lecture because he knew that secretly Dan was rather pleased to be there, where he could let someone else take care of them for a bit. _

_"__I wish Claire wasn't ducking off so quickly. We might need her help to get you both out to the shack. I can drive you there but one old woman isn't going to be much help getting you two inside and settled."_

_Dan just shrugged and Jones could see he was nervous._

_"__She thinks I'm still mad at her."_

_"__Well have you told her you're not?"_

_"__I..."_

_Listening to Dan and his mum talk was strangely relaxing. They were so comfortable with one another and with their small, half-lidded eyes, they looked like they were about to fall asleep, which made Jones feel sleepy too._

_"__You haven't told her, because you still are," Cathy stated, looking off into the sitting room and the family pictures on the wall. _

_"__I'm not."_

_Cathy tutted and Dan made a face but in a half-hearted way, like he knew she was right._

_"__You are a terrible liar, Daniel. You're angry at her. And that's alright, love. It is."_

_"__Is it?" Dan muttered, staring at the plate of biscuits, which his mother then slid across the table to him, without once moving her eyes or seeming to look at him. _

_"__Yes, love, it is. And I know that's how you feel because you and I... we're a bit the same, perhaps. But Claire's different - Don't think that about your sister and don't look all innocent I know what you were thinking - Claire is just different from you and I. She needs to talk about things. It's just who she is."_

_Jones pressed his lips together so that he wouldn't laugh, because Cathy Ashcroft was even more amazing in person than on the phone, and Dan was pouting because his mother knew exactly what he'd been thinking about his sister and had called him out on it. Then she turned her eyes to Jones and he wondered if he was about to get told off as well, but she just gave him a look that let him know that it was ok to be in on the joke._

_"__I don't know if I can talk to her," Dan mumbled, then jumped when both Jones and Cathy turned to look at him. _

_"__Then write her a letter," his mother said, with a note to her voice that declared the matter settled. "You are good at words, Daniel, and she needs to know that her only brother doesn't hate her. Now Jones, would you like more tea?"_

_"__Yes please, Cathy."_

_She smiled at that, bringing the pot over to the table and pouring him another cup, hand on the porcelain lid and all, properly elegant._

_"__I like that. Cathy," she told him as she sat back down. "My mother used to call me Cathy. And you, Jones? Are you just Jones?"_

_She had asked the question with care and Jones knew that she was good at asking questions and finding out what she needed to know, but he didn't much feel like dragging his past back out again._

_"__Yes please," he replied, ducking his head and stirring his tea with the tiny, silver spoon he'd been given._

_It made a nice noise, delicate and innocent, the same colour as the milky tea in his cup, but he tried to focus on what Catherine was saying and not get distracted._

_"__I do know your full name, of course. I read the article (for want of a better word). I just wanted to make sure that Jones was what you wished to be called. It's rather short, when introducing you to people."_

_Jones nodded._

_"__Not like Daniel Roger McFarlane Ashcroft."_

_"__No," she agreed. "Or Catherine Elizabeth Ashcroft nee McFarlane. Perhaps there's something to be said for a shorter name after all."_

_Jones could hear the humour in her voice and it was so much like Dan's that he couldn't help looking up. Dan was rolling his eyes and Cathy was smiling into her tea cup and it was all so delightfully domestic and comfortable Jones wished he could record it somehow, to play back later, or bottle it for when he needed a quick pick-me-up._

_"__Ashcroft's a nice name," he whispered and Dan snorted._

_"__You can have it. I'm sick of people recognising it."_

_Catherine chuckled at that._

_"__Well, what with this new law... if you really want to share a name-"_

_"__It won't go through," Dan snapped. "Don't go getting ideas, mum. It's not happening."_

_"__Ah, silly boy. What do I always say?" Catherine said with a smirk and a wink, while Jones struggled to figure out what they were even talking about. "Leave it with me, Daniel. I'll see what I can do."_

_"__Mum..." Dan had grumbled, shifting in his seat and frowning, but Jones couldn't understand why._

_"__Jones, dear," Catherine turned to him, smiling brightly and ignoring her son's threatening look. "Would you like another biscuit?" _

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><p>Jones looked down at his empty plate. He hadn't eaten food this delicious in, well... actually he couldn't remember ever eating food like this. Cathy used a home catering company because she couldn't cook and was too busy to learn and there had been three courses and it had all been delicious. Even the vegetables. And now he felt so tired, even the throbbing of his leg, and shoulder... and chest, couldn't keep his eyes from closing. It felt strange to be so full of food. It was almost uncomfortable, like when he'd woken up and realised that he was covered in stitches and everything had felt tight and awkward.<p>

He tried to catch Dan's eye, to let him know that it was sleepy time, and codeine time, because he didn't want to interrupt the conversations going on around the table, but Dan was busy trying to convince his parents that going out for his birthday was definitely out of the question. Pingu gave him a sympathetic smile but Jones knew there was no way _he_ was going to interrupt all four Ashcrofts.

"It's your birthday, listen to your mother," Roger said in a low, quiet voice.

"But it's not practical," Dan said, his voice close to a whine.

"Dan," Claire interjected. "You can't just refuse."

"It's alright," Cathy said again, but they'd shared a bottle of wine with the meal and Jones and Pingu were both learning that wine with dinner made Ashcrofts argumentative. Jones could feel himself beginning to sweat, his skin prickling painfully around his barely healed scars and his heart starting to press hard against his ribs.

"No, it's not," Claire maintained. "You've got us all here, it's your fucking birthday-"

"Language!"

"But why else are we here if not for his birthday?" Claire exclaimed, turning to her father for support.

"I know that. I told him to listen to his mother," Roger told her, beginning to raise his voice.

"But now she's agreeing with him!"

"I can order in something special, it will be fine. Stop pushing it, Claire." Catherine said, the sharp edge making Jones jump.

He looked down at his lap and tried to focus on the cream threads of the table cloth but he couldn't block out the way each word was like droplets of blood hitting concrete and felt like rough fingers squeezing his wrists until the bones began to grind. Why did his brain have to magnify everything, whether it was good or bad or scary or ugly? Why couldn't he just be normal?

"It's not a big deal," Dan said through gritted teeth, and Jones could hear how hard he was trying to stay calm. "My birthday was last week, anyway. It's been and gone and I've changed my mind about the dinner."

"But why? We just want to do something nice for you. Why do you have to be difficult?" Claire demanded, and Jones jumped again, wincing as the shock pulsed up his spine to his shoulder.

"Because," Dan snapped. "I have a broken, fucking, leg. Jones has a broken, fucking, leg. It hurts. Now shut up."

"Language," their father hissed. "And I think it's decided. We'll eat in. I'm going to my study. I want to show Harry my old Sinclair ZX80. I know it's in there somewhere. I assembled it myself you know. Claire, you can clear the table."

Jones heard chairs scrape as Roger and Pingu stood and left and wished he could go with them. Claire got up with a huff as well, stacking dishes noisily before she too left the room. And suddenly it was quiet, just the cream of the table cloth and the rustle of clothing.

"I'm going to talk to Claire," Catherine said slowly. "I'll try to explain. You two should probably head off to bed."

Jones kept his head down until he knew she was gone, until it was only him and Dan left in the room. He looked up carefully because a large part of him worried that Dan would be cross at him but Dan just looked sad and tired.

"I'm sorry, Jones," he croaked, grabbing his cane but not attempting to stand. "I'm not... great at being a brother, am I?"

"Dunno," Jones replied, shaking his head and giving Dan a weak smile. "Never really thought of you as my brother."

Dan's shoulders began to shake and for a second Jones worried that he was crying but then he heard the puffs of laughter and Dan grinned at him and he felt his chest finally begin to loosen.

"That's probably for the best," Dan rumbled and Jones felt his grin widen as Dan wiggled his eye brows in what he termed a 'saucy' manner.

He stood up with a groan and helped Jones carefully to his feet then sighed and pressed a gentle, if prickly, kiss to Jones' forehead. Jones wrapped his free arm around Dan's side, not far because it pulled at his shoulder, but enough, and Dan rested his chin carefully on Jones' head in return.

Hugging was awkward but it had been so long since they'd been able to that they did it anyway.

Four weeks. Four weeks since Dan had arrived home to an ambulance and a police wagon parked in front of his house and Jones on the ground, struggling to breathe. Dan's blurry face had been the last thing he'd seen before he'd passed out and Dan's voice, shocked and scared and desperate, had been the only sound his ears had been able to pick up, like an echo in an empty theatre.

He desperately wanted to be able to touch Dan and hold him tight and just feel his lover's skin against his own, and tonight was their first night sharing a bed after so long, but he didn't know if they'd be able to. On the train it had been easy to flirt and joke and play their usual game of 'winner gets a blowie' but the reality of it all was a bit frightening. Like being a complete virgin all over again. And Dan had barely touched him all day and Jones wasn't sure if it was because he was nervous or because they were at his parents' house, or if Jones had done something wrong.

He decided not to push it, Dan would start sending him the appropriate signals when he was good and ready, and Jones was so tired he'd be pretty useless anyway. So he pulled out of the hug and gave Dan a reassuring smile.

"I'm absolutely shattered," he said with a yawn, feeling the tender muscles in his neck spasm. "I reckon sleep's addictive. People keep telling you to rest, that it's good for you, but then you're hooked on it. Suddenly you need sleep, like, every night. It's mental."

Dan let out another quiet chuckle that morphed into a yawn as they hobbled down the hallway to the stairs. Maybe sex could wait until tomorrow. Or next week. Or, like, a year from now. Jones wasn't sure, but right now he just wanted to sleep.


	28. Chapter 28

**This chapter needs a warning of sorts but I'm not sure how to classify it. So, if you are affected by descriptions of death and such, this is probably not the chapter for you. Ta.**

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><p>Dan woke with a gasp, trying to calm his breathing as the nightmare receded, hoping Jones wouldn't wake up, even though he knew that it was probably a lost cause, because Jones had been sleeping so lightly since...<p>

He shifted the headphone from his ears and lay them on his pillow as he sat up, glancing down at Jones' peaceful face. He'd worried that neither of them would be able to sleep in his parents' quiet house, on their quiet street. It would be worse when they moved to the shack, and Dan had actually worried that their holiday wouldn't work out, that neither of them would ever sleep without noise and music. But Jones had obviously been thinking along the same lines.

The day before he was due to leave the hospital Dan had walked into Jones' room to find him butchering his iPod (which had already suffered through several alterations) so that it could accommodate two sets of headphones and played nothing but a seven hour loop of "sleeping music". His hands were shaky and he'd lost a lot of strength but he was working on the small device with a determined grin on his face.

And for a few hours it seemed to work. They'd arranged themselves carefully on the bed, their uninjured legs in the centre and hands touching. But now Dan was awake and sweating hard enough to leave the sheets wet and clingy.

"Wazzit?" Jones mumbled but Dan just rubbed his hand gently along the younger man's arm to calm him back to sleep.

He didn't want Jones to wake up, he needed his sleep, and he didn't want Jones to know what he'd been dreaming of.

The day he told Jones that Jonatton had died, he hadn't been able to summon any emotion at all, and Jones had just stared at him, barely conscious, bruised and frail on his pillow whilst a nurse prepped him for yet another operation. His chapped lips had moved against the tube in his throat and his glassy eyes looked concerned but Dan didn't know what question he was trying to ask and had just given his head a shake in response.

It had been a stupid thing to do, telling Jones when he was in no fit state to process the news - when he was about to be cut open again so that a couple of doctors could piece his thigh bone back together with screws and bolts and a big metal plate - but Dan had to get it out from inside of him, fearing that if he didn't tell Jones straight away it would seem suspicious, or be even more difficult. There could be no love lost between Jones and Jonatton - Jones wouldn't have been in hospital if Jonatton hadn't decided to try and ruin his life - but Jones was capable of more empathy than Dan thought was strictly healthy and he wasn't sure how Jones would react to the news.

Claire had had a melt down. Screaming and railing against the unfairness of the universe like she was auditioning for the title role in "Medea". It had been loud enough, and Dan had been tired enough, that he'd fallen asleep on her couch, but he'd been woken by nightmares, just as he had every night for a month.

It was the same every time and part of Dan's brain was frustrated beyond words that he could be reduced to a shaking, clammy wreck by a dream that he now knew too well. The less rational part of his brain just sat in the corner rocking, begging not to be sent back to bed.

He knew that Jones suffered from nightmares, reoccurring dreams like flashbacks that made him scream in his sleep and twitch like he was undergoing electroshock therapy. He'd never fully appreciated the fear that he'd see in Jones' eyes afterwards, at the prospect of going back to sleep after having one. Until now.

He tried to close his eyes, just to clear the grit from his vision enough to look at the clock, but as soon as his lids were closed he was back at the door. Jonatton's pretentious front door that, instead of his apartment number, just had the word _'Yeah?'_ stenciled onto it. He'd been there once before, when he'd first started working for SugarApe and Jonatton had invited him around for celebratory drinks, and he'd hated it for it's pop art prints and glass-topped table and the fact that it was so clean you spent the entire time feeling paranoid about spilling something or dropping something and then Jonatton would just tut and look at you like you were too moronic to even be trusted with an open cup.

Dan opened his eyes quickly but he couldn't shake the dream from his head. He'd never been able to remember his dreams before, even the ones about Jones that he wished he could hold on to slipped away from his conscious mind within minutes of him waking up. But the nightmare was different. Each night he had to relive the way he'd pounded on Jonatton's door, yelling and calling him every name under the sun before he checked the knob and realised that it wasn't locked. Every night he went through it again, walking into the apartment and realising that, even though it was still spotlessly clean, it stank. Every night remembering the fear that had immediately gripped his throat at the smell, and how he'd crept through the house, no longer angry just scared, and not sure why he felt the need to be quiet when he already knew what he was going to find.

Every single night he replayed the moment of walking into Jonatton's ostentatious bedroom and being hit by a wall of stench. And the word stench was the only way he could accurately describe it, but in that moment it had reminded him of _Labyrinth_, and 'the Bog of Eternal Stench', and all he could think of was Ludo stumbling about moaning "Smells bad!" and how Jones had once teased him and said that if they were characters in a film then they'd be Ludo and Sir Didymus, one small and pointy, the other big and hairy, and the most unlikely friends in the world. And Dan had giggled. As he'd approached the bed he couldn't help but imagine himself as a big, hairy, clumsy muppet. And he'd giggled.

And then he'd seen Jonatton's body and he'd vomited over his own shoes.

He'd had a thing for crime novels as a teenager, had even daydreamed about becoming a famous crime writer himself, before he'd realised just how difficult it was to develop unique characters and maintain a plot beyond the first two thousand words. And eventually he'd given up on reading crime novels as well. But in all of the books he'd read, no one had described a corpse well enough to prepare him for Jonatton's purple, almost black, bloated, body. His tongue was overflowing from his mouth and his eyes were bulging from his face, unseeing and absurdly, horribly, surprised.

Dan's fingers had stretched out, without his brain even realising, to touch the dead man's skin at his wrist, as if there could possibly be a pulse to feel for. And the skin had peeled away and stuck to his fingers, like the scraps of white ash that would float out above a campfire and cling to hair and skin and eye lashes. It had made his stomach heave but even the sting of stomach acid in his nose couldn't mask the stench of Jonatton's body.

And in reality he'd run from the room and called the police and had gone home to strip off the clothes that smelt like death before realising he couldn't stand to be on his own and seeking out his sister. But in the dream he just stood there, staring at the body. And when he blinked he was no longer looking at Jonatton Yeah?'s lifeless face, but at Jones, his face coated in blood and his throat dark and swollen and his eyes staring up and seeming to ask why all of this had happened.

And the problem was that Dan knew it had happened because of him.

He was a prat, and he deserved everything he got, but he'd dragged Jones down with him. One of the few things that had actually made him happy over the last few years was seeing Jones succeed. Even when he felt so detached from his own life that he did idiotic things just to feel something, he could look at Jones and believe that he'd helped a bit, that he'd done something right, that writing shit for SugaRape in exchange for money to get Jones the stuff he needed while he worked on his craft was worth it. It had been. And when he wasn't swamped by his... depression (which was still difficult to admit even to himself) things had been good. They'd been happy.

A month ago he'd still thought they could move forward and be happy and the same as they'd always been. He'd read too many books about triumphing over adversity and how it made people better. It was a trope he didn't particularly care for, but he'd never hated it so much as he did now. Adversity just kicked your teeth in and left you feeling weak and useless and even if you crawled back to some semblance of normalcy, there was nothing good in it for you. Strangers and people who thought of themselves as your friends could look at you and use you as inspiration, "food for thought", a romantically tragic image that they could wank over in order to feel something in the course of their tepid lives. There was nothing more than that.

He pulled his notebook and biro toward him and wrote that thought down, even though he knew he'd look at it tomorrow and see it for the melodramatic swill it was. He'd seen a hospital chaplain a couple of times, in an attempt to fill the long hours, waiting for Jones to come back from surgeries, and it had been suggested that he try writing down how he felt, just to get it out, like draining a wound.

He'd glared at the chaplain, a woman in her forties, who'd just stared right back.

_"__Write it down," she'd told him, handing him a pad and a biro. "Just see. Some things work, some things don't. But you won't know until you try."_

_"__I don't believe in God," he replied but she'd shaken her head like he was missing the point._

_"__Didn't say you had to. I didn't believe in him either, after my husband died. But writing helped. Just try it."_

He quite liked her. She'd been there when Jones had arrived at the hospital and Dan couldn't quite get his head around someone who chose to be an Intensive Care Chaplain and work for pittance and put up with death and tears all day. She didn't seem like the martyr sort and even if he didn't quite trust her, he didn't hate her.

Because when Dan had collapsed into a chair, unable to keep the tears back, she'd sat down next to him, and she hadn't told him that it would be ok, or that God had a plan, hadn't spouted bilge about trial and adversity, she'd just been there. And when a nurse came to ask for contact details for Jones' next of kin, and had kept calling him Thomas and Mr Pearce instead of Jones, and had told Dan bluntly that he wasn't allowed in to Jones' room because he was not a relative and that boyfriends didn't count if you weren't straight... the chaplain had been there and had quietly spoken to one of the hospital administrators on his behalf.

Jones was an orphan. No parents, no siblings, no grandparents. Dan had no legal right to be with him or have any say in his treatment. And no one had time to feel any sympathy for that, because hospitals were busy places, and intensive care wards even more so. And Dan had been scared.

He hadn't had to think about any of that when he'd been the one in the hospital bed. Jones had taken care of most things but Claire had been there as his next of kin and Jones had kept their parents in the loop. Dan had been in a regular ward, he hadn't been unconscious for long, there hadn't been any surgeries or consent forms to sign, he'd been allowed visitors straight away.

But things had been different with Jones, and when Dan was finally allowed to see him it had been with special permission and with the chaplain at his side.

The next day, when Jones was moved to a different ward, it was easier, but Dan had felt indebted to that woman, and he couldn't dislike her. And he hated the fact that he couldn't remember her name.

He scrawled a few more notes onto the paper, even though writing in the dark meant it would be next to impossible to read, and lay back down, realising that he did in fact, feel a bit better. The movement, however, woke Jones, who opened one eye blearily and shifted the headphones away from his ears as he tried to focus on Dan.

"Whassa matter?" he asked croakily and Dan felt the familiar pain in his heart as he stroked Jones' fringe away from his clammy forehead.

"Nothing, love," Dan whispered. "Just a dream."


	29. Chapter 29

**This was going to be in the previous chapter but it all got a bit long, so here it is now. Ta.**

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><p>"Nothing, love," Dan whispered. "Just a dream."<p>

"It's alright, Dan," Jones murmured in return. " 'm here now. You're safe."

"God, you're beautiful," Dan breathed and imagined he could see Jones smile even in the darkness.

"I think you'll find that's my line, Mr Ashcroft."

He felt Jones' hand fumbling about until it bumped against his own. He wrapped his fingers around Jones' smaller, more delicate digits and gave a gentle squeeze, smiling at the contented hum that rumbled through Jones' chest in response.

He rolled up onto his side as much as his plastered leg would allow and began to run his other hand along Jones' thin frame, enjoying the way Jones leaned into the touch like a contented cat. He'd actually gone out and bought them both a pair of pajamas for this trip. Jones used to prefer a pair of boxer shorts and t-shirt for bed but his anxiety over being seen, of being uncovered, had increased dramatically, and Dan had bought him a soft, grey tracksuit as a way of telling him that it was ok. The fabric was soft and loose and it was so easy to dip his hand beneath Jones' top to run his palm across the warm plains of the younger man's stomach. He could hear the change in Jones' breathing, from sleepy to stuttered, the happy little moan that told him that the touch was welcome, and he slid his hand downwards, feeling the prominent hipbones and paper thin skin, but slowed down when Jones let out a strange, unhappy noise in the back of his throat.

"Dan, I-"

"It's ok. We can stop."

"No," he puffed faintly. "No."

Dan rubbed his hand gently over the hair of Jones' pubic bone as he heard the other man take deep, relaxing breaths, before edging downwards to touch the soft foreskin of Jones' flaccid cock. He stroked his fingers lightly along it a few times, admiring, as he did every time, how the silky skin of Jones' penis felt so amazing against his own skin, how it contrasted with the wiry hair around it so perfectly, how privileged he felt being allowed to touch Jones and bring him pleasure. But even though Jones' sounded excited nothing stirred. He leant in to press soft kisses to Jones' mouth, running his hand down to stroke his testicles and thigh and Jones arched his neck into the kiss. But he didn't get hard.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice high and wavering against Dan's lips, but Dan shook his head.

"No. It's the middle of the night, you're tired. Don't be sorry."

"But it's not that," Jones murmured. "It's... I can't... I mean, I want to, but... I don't know... And I..."

He heard Jones' muffled sob and moved his hand away but it just caused Jones to turn his head to the side and Dan could hear him beginning to weep softly.

"It doesn't matter, Jonesy," he said softly. "Honestly. _I'm_ sorry. What sort of arsehole tries it on when his boyfriend's still recovering from... multiple broken bones? Christ. I wasn't thinking straight. I'm sorry."

He pressed a kiss to Jones' neck and sighed with relief when Jones turned back and kissed his lips, even if he tasted of tears .

"It's alright," he said, his voice cracked and tired. "I do want to, I just..."

Dan nodded. Jones had told him about times when he'd been homeless and people had tried it on. It made his gorge rise that people would try to take advantage of a kid while he slept in a bus shelter and now Dan wanted to smack himself around the head for making Jones feel threatened again when he was supposed to be looking after him.

He wrapped his arm around Jones' waist and kissed him firmly just above his ear and whispered to Jones that he loved him in as many ways as he knew how until he felt his lover's body relax back into sleep. The room wasn't so dark anymore, the light of predawn was edging around the curtains and Dan watched as the walls turned from navy to gray to pale blue while he held Jones, careful to avoid the man's injured ribs.

His leg was aching but he didn't want to move and risk waking Jones again. It was an odd sort of pain. Not the intense radiating pain of when he'd first broken it, or the continuous ache that he'd started to get used to before Jones had ended up in hospital. This pain was like something scratching and scraping inside him, like a pin in his clothing that he could feel but not find - only one hundred times worse.

Jones gave a whimper and Dan looked down at his face, wanting to smooth the frown from his lover's forehead and mouth but not daring to. Jones' eyelids were fluttering madly and as Dan watched his body began to twitch, like a puppet having it's strings pulled.

It broke his heart, every time, watching Jones dream, knowing that it wasn't a nice one. People like Jones deserved to dream of rainbows and sweets and music, and instead Dan could only imagine the cacophony of horrible images Jones' brain might be throwing together to torment him. Recently the dreams seemed to have gotten worse, at least, so it seemed to Dan. He hadn't been allowed to sleep at the hospital but he'd seen Jones sleep a fair amount over the last month, but rather than his quality of sleep improving as his pain decreased, Jones' sleep was getting worse and Dan worried that it would only be a matter of time before the insomnia returned in full force.

And the nightmares could quite easily be traced back to the visit they'd had a week before, from one of the police officers who'd arrested Jones' attackers.

He'd been young and he hadn't been able to hide his anger as he explained that only one of the four men who'd caused Jones' injuries had been charged with grievous bodily harm, whilst the other three had had their charge scaled back to actual bodily harm instead. They had all pleaded guilty at their initial hearing, which was why they'd been released on bail, and the guilty plea at least meant that Jones wouldn't have to go through a court case or testify. But it also meant that sentencing had happened without them being really aware of it. The man who'd crushed Jones' wind pipe, broken his nose and kicked his ribs in had received a sentence of twelve months. Two of the others, who'd kicked and jumped on Jones' leg until they heard it snap, had each received nine months. The last man had received four months.

Dan had been shaking with anger, as had the officer, but Jones had just been shaking. They'd been offered counseling but when Dan had informed the officer that they were moving away for a while he'd been asked to give a forwarding address and then that had been that. And he'd had to spend the day with Jones, silent and pale, and consumed by the knowledge that the men who'd beaten him would be free within a year, and would know where they lived.

And suddenly London - beautiful, noisy, filthy, beguiling London - didn't pull at him any more. He didn't want it. He wanted Jones to laugh and smile and dance about in tight t-shirts and plastic beads. He wanted to revisit the argument about the cat, because suddenly giving Jones a kitten seemed like a brilliant idea, and he wanted to learn to cook, and he wanted to buy a few dozen new CDs just so they could listen to them together and argue. He wanted to listen to Jones describe all the different kinds of rain. And he wanted to be content. Not just occasionally happy between the darkness and grayness and emptiness. He wanted to actually feel normal.

Of course, to achieve all that he'd have to actually do things, rather than just wishing for them and frowning. But he wanted Jones to feel safe. He wanted to see Jones throw his head back as he laughed and hug his own arms to stop himself flying apart in his joy.

And now the sun was peaking around the sides of the curtains and he felt tired and a bit sick but he didn't feel like he never wanted to get out of bed, and that was good. And he knew for a fact that Pingu knew how to make pancakes and that he would probably teach Dan to make them without too much pestering. Dan was going to make Jones breakfast in bed.


	30. Chapter 30

**For Worriedeye x**

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><p>"Shit! Pingu, look!"<p>

"It- it's alright, Dan. Everyone does that at least once when they're first starting out. It looks easy but it takes time to learn."

"Well, I'm not giving him that one. You can eat that one."

"That's... fine."

"What, so now I just - Ow! Fuck!"

"Quick, just let me- no, no, no, just... You should put some water on that."

"Fine. Then I'm doing one with blue berries."

"Maybe you should just- No, you're right. Blueberries sounds great. Good idea."

The sound of the pancake sizzling in the pan and Dan's muttering drifted out from the kitchen to where Claire sat on the stairs, the letter clutched in her hand, trying to laugh as quietly as she could and wipe her eyes at the same time.

She'd come down stairs that morning in search of Harry and had had a plate stacked high with oddly shaped pancakes and a folded sheet of paper with her name on it thrust at her instead. Dan had looked like a madman, his hair sticking up wildly around his head and a look of mild panic in his eyes, and Harry had been standing behind him, his lips pursed as he tried not to smile. Harry was teaching Dan to make pancakes and she had to eat all of the slightly burnt ones apparently.

Dan had insisted that she eat first and read the letter later so she'd done as she was told, sitting at the breakfast table and watching as Harry patiently taught Dan how to make lump free, unburnt pancakes that were also cooked all the way through whilst Dan swore, burnt himself and somehow managed to get batter in his hair. They were actually quite good.

It had been funny to watch but she didn't want to make Dan any more self-conscious than he already was so she'd told him 'thank you', put her plate in the sink, and left to read her letter before Dan caught on that he was being cute.

She wasn't sure what she'd expected but a few minutes later she was sitting on the stairs like she'd used to when she was ten years old, trying to cry as quietly as she could and listening to Dan making pancakes that needed to be perfect. Because they were for Jones.

_Claire,_

_Mum says I need to write you a letter because I'm rubbish at talking to you and when we do try to talk we just shout. And I think she's right (what am I saying, she's our mother, of course she's right). So here goes._

_Sometimes, Claire, you are a little shit. Yep, that's my opening argument. But, that said, I can be a shit too. It's probably genetic. Don't tell mum. But sometimes we are shitty to each other and I don't really know why, and I am sorry for all of the times I've been horrible to you. _

_However, (and this bit is important so pay attention) I don't hate you, Claire. You're annoying and self-righteous and bossy and nosey but I seriously don't hate you. You're my little sister and I love you. I always have and I always will. Even when you are a shit. When you were born I thought it was the best thing ever. I had someone to play Lego with, and someone who I could hug who couldn't outrun me. It was great. I'm not exactly sure where I'm going with this but I need you to understand that I don't hate you, that I love you, and that you're important to me._

_That said, taking photos of Jones and me having sex was a shitty thing to do, even if you didn't mean for Jonatton to get his hands on them (and I can't believe I actually wrote that sentence). But do you know what? Jonatton would have run that story even if he hadn't got hold of your photos, because he __is__ was a massive dick. _

_But taking the photos was still a shit thing to do because I know you and I know you would have used them to blackmail me, even if it was just blackmailing me into doing the dishes, you would have tried it. And that's a bit fucked up, because when you did that you didn't think about Jones at all. When the photos were published you didn't think about Jones either. Last night at dinner you weren't thinking of Jones and he was sitting across from you at the table, in pain and feeling guilty because he thinks its his fault that I don't want to go out to some stupid restaurant._

_And the thing is, I love Jones. I'm going to write that again: _I love Jones_. He is my boyfriend and my partner and all of that stuff and we've been together for a really long time. We didn't think it was anyone else's business and yes, I was bit nervous about coming out to my family. I was nervous about coming out to you. I'm not particularly brave. You've pointed out me that I'm a coward often enough and it's true. Quitting SugaRape was one of the bravest things I've done in my life. It probably only comes second to the night I was walking down a quiet street and saw a kid crying in front of his house and decided that I needed to do something about it. _

_Jones makes me brave. I wouldn't be writing this if I weren't lying beside him right now. And I'm writing all this so that you understand that for you and I to move on and be friends (and I do want us to be friends, rather than awkward acquaintances who happen to be related) then you need to see how important Jones is to me. And I'd really like you to apologise to him. I forgive you for what happened, but you haven't even offered Jones the opportunity to say that to you._

_Right, well, I think that's enough sentimental over sharing, don't you? I'm going to go and hassle your boyfriend now who is, by the way, one of the only men in London who I am not horribly opposed to you dating. Well done. He's quiet and he can cook and he's not an idiot. For the love of god don't screw it up and scare him off. _

_Your brother,_

_Dan._

Claire gave a sniff, wiping her nose on her hand.

"This is why I always told you to carry a handkerchief, darling."

She jumped and went to stand but her mum just sat down next to her on the step, smoothing her navy slacks. She was dressed for work and Claire couldn't help but admire the high shine on her shoes. Her mum always looked impeccable and Claire wasn't sure how she did it. It was only eight in the morning and she was showered, dressed and even smelled professional. Claire was wearing the same pajamas her parents had given her for Christmas five years ago.

"So, what's the matter?"

Claire handed over the letter and sat nervously as it was read. Just as her mother was refolding it and sighing there was a triumphant whoop from the kitchen and the clatter of a spatula. They both looked up and Claire looked up at her mum, whose eye brows were raised questioningly.

"Dan's trying to cook Jones pancakes," she explained.

"Ah. Well. It is a lovely letter."

"He called me a shit," Claire frowned but couldn't stay angry when her mother started chuckling softly.

"Yes he did. And you took the photos of him having sex?" Claire winced at that and nodded with her eyes tight as shut as they would go but her mum just sighed heavily in the traditional parental way that meant _'kids these days...'_

"Sorry."

"Good," she said bluntly, but then her voice softened and she pressed a kiss to Claire's tangled hair. "He also said he loved you though. And he does. I remember the way he used to cuddle you too. He was such a cuddly little boy but he didn't like the part when he had to let go. He just used to cling to people until they managed to wriggle themselves free. The other children learnt not to let him hug them. They used to run away and it used to make him cry."

Claire had never heard her mum sound so melancholy. Her mum was all business and reason and Claire had never heard her talk like this before. And she couldn't imagine Dan running after the kids in his class in a one sided game of hug chasey. She had a hard time remembering him without scruffy facial hair to be honest and the thought of Dan as a cuddly child was hard to process.

"I didn't know that," she said, when the silence had started to stretch out.

"Hmm," her mum replied, leaning her shoulder on Claire's. "That was part of the reason he loved you so much. I mean, he loved you anyway, he was nuts about you but," she chuckled again and Claire felt a strange surge of affection fill her, listening to her mum talk like they were friends instead of mother and daughter. "You were late to walk, probably because Dan just carried you everywhere, but when we told him to put you down and let you do things on your own he refused because he liked that you couldn't run away when he hugged you. Your father used to worry that he'd have your head off, the way he hugged you. He used to wrap his little arms around your head and squeeze and rock you and we always expected you to burst into tears but you didn't. Not when it was Dan. But then you _did_ learn to walk and that was it. You were the most independent child. And an absolute chatterbox, which drove Dan a bit mad, I think. But he _adored_ you. He loves you so much."

Claire felt a tear trickle down the side of her nose.

"He's got a bloody strange way of showing it," she sniffed.

"So do you, dear," was her mother's droll reply.

Claire nodded at that. Things weren't brilliant between her and Dan but she knew he'd tried really hard in his letter. And he liked Harry.

"So what should I do for him?"

"Well," her mother said slowly.

"Do you have a list?" Claire cut in incredulously.

"Actually, yes. One - talk to Jones, he's part of this family now. Two - I don't want to hear you yelling for the rest of your stay. It's not nice and if it keeps on I'll be confiscating every bottle of wine just to keep us all from arguing."

"What?"

"We get snippy. And, three -" she continued, counting the numbers on her fingers, "please consider staying a little longer. Just to help the boys get to the shack."

She sounded sad again and Claire felt bad, but she still didn't really want to stay.

"I just don't think I can, mum," she grumbled. "Harry's starting a new job and I'll be needing a job too. And I want to get my film done. And..."

"Weekends?" her mother murmured. "Leeds isn't that far. We haven't seen either of you in years. And... I'm not sure how well we're going to get on, getting them both out there, just your dad and I. We could use your help. I'm getting old, I can't throw Dan over my shoulder anymore. "

"Did you ever?"

The laugh her mother let out sounded so dark and wicked that Claire couldn't help but giggle but the sound brought Dan limping from the kitchen suspiciously.

"What are you two laughing about?" he asked, his eyes going so narrow Claire could hardly see them at all. "Mum, I've made you pancakes."

"Oh, love!" she said standing and Claire tried not to pout at how easily impressed their mother always was by whatever Dan did.

"They're a bit burnt but I'm saving the good ones for Jones."

"Oh, love."

Claire's heart melted a little at that, because Dan being sweet and wanting to do something nice for his boyfriend was unbearably cute. Their mum walked forward and gave him a careful kiss on the cheek, avoiding his batter covered tracksuit as she did, before heading into the kitchen to find her pancakes. He saw her smiling and his frown deepened. He looked like he wanted to tell her to shut up and was only just holding himself back, which only made her smile more.

"You read it?" he asked, tilting his chin in the direction of the letter and she nodded seriously.

"Yeah."

"Right, well," he looked down at his plastered foot and Claire realised that her big brother really wasn't good at human interaction, but that he was trying really hard. "I told you not to tell mum but I'm guessing you let her read it."

"Yeah, sorry."

" 's fine," Dan shook his head. "She knows everything anyway. Except - oh, god! Now she has proof that I'm having sex! Fuck - But... it's all true. I mean all the stuff about you and me... Jones... And..."

"You're so in love aren't you?" she said in mock disgust and Dan let out a laugh, the tension breaking around them like sugar glass.

"Afraid so," he told her, his face splitting into the wolfish grin that meant he was up to no good.

"Gross," she told him but she smiled and when Dan poked his tongue out at her she actually felt like she had a proper big brother again.

"Right," he said, ducking into the kitchen and re-emerging with a plate of golden pancakes drizzled with honey and a mug of freshly brewed coffee, holding them like they were priceless artifacts. "Wish me luck."

"Oh please," she told him, grinning over his shoulder at Harry and her mum, who were watching from the doorway. "You could serve him burnt grilled cheese and he'd still love you."

"I've done that actually," he muttered, then looked up at Claire, actually making eye contact and allowing her to see his hope and worry and affection. "Thanks, Claire."

"Yeah," she said as he limped up past her toward the stairs, moving slowly so that he didn't slop the coffee. "You too."


	31. Chapter 31

Jones surfaced from sleep with a sniff, raising his arm to rub his nose, his eyes still shut against the morning sun. Or at least, he tried too. His shoulder gave a sharp spasm as he lifted his arm to shoulder height and he quickly lay it back down and used the other one instead. He'd been warned that his shoulder would take at least six months to get back to normal, possibly longer considering the damage to his ribs and breast bone, and he was determined to let it heal properly. He had a folder full of exercises to do each day and his records had been sent on ahead of them to the Cottage Hospital in Hornsea where he'd be seeing a rehab physician, physiotherapist and occupational therapist, as would Dan.

As much as they were going for a holiday, they were going to be busy too, and Jones was looking forward to it. Med appointments would at least keep them both from going insane from having nothing to do. Dan'd be alright, seaside towns always had dusty, little second-hand bookshops and Dan had the ability to get so engrossed in a good book that he wouldn't surface for eight hours straight and then only when Jones shut off his music and removed his clothes. Dan seemed to have a seventh sense when it came to Jones getting undressed, and once upon a time Jones had been able to distract Dan from anything that was bothering him by simply announcing that he was going for a shower and leaving the door open as he stripped.

He wasn't sure if that particular trick was still going to work though. Dan used to be the only person Jones could stand to be naked in front of without feeling like there were cockroaches crawling all over his skin because Dan looked at him differently to the rest of the world. And not just because of his love clouded vision. Jones had caught Dan looking at him loads of times and his eyes always seemed... less shifty, than when he was looking out at the world. That was special, he knew. And Dan had been through a lot for him over the last month and hadn't just run off or told Jones he was too much trouble.

But Jones didn't know whether Dan would still find him attractive anymore, now that he was all broken. And he'd hardly be able to lure Dan out of his own head and into bed if he couldn't bloody undress himself.

He tried to shift himself in bed but his body just ached and he had to stop. It was getting irritating, the pain, and he hated talking about it, even to Dan, because he didn't want to seem like he was complaining. And he didn't want to be annoying. He didn't want to give Dan another reason to want to chuck him.

He turned his head, to reassure himself that Dan wasn't going to leave, that he was an idiot to think that Dan'd ditch him when they were about to head off to his parent's beach house. But there was no one there. The bed beside him was cold and there was no sign of Dan in the room. Jones strained his ears but couldn't hear much of anything and felt his chest tighten as his breathing began to come out in stunted gasps because Dan was gone and he couldn't even get himself out of bed properly and because last night, when Dan had tried to touch him and kiss him... he hadn't been able to... go along with it.

He tried to stop his breaths from becoming sobs but his eyes were prickling and he felt like he was being held down in an icy puddle and there was a thudding somewhere but he couldn't work out where it was coming from because he couldn't make his brain slow down enough for him to concentrate.

And then, the door opened and Dan backed awkwardly into the room.

"Oh, thank fuck!" Jones sighed, his voice high and wobbly. "I thought you'd left."

Dan turned, his face looking innocently confused, and held up his hands for Jones to see.

"I made you breakfast."

He walked carefully across the room, trying to move evenly so that the coffee didn't spill and the plate full of pancakes didn't topple. He was concentrating hard and Jones took in the sight of his batter smeared clothes, and hair, and the delicious looking food he was holding out like a peace offering.

"Did you... did you make those?"

He didn't mean it to sound so incredulous but Dan gave him a glare that wasn't really angry as he sat carefully on the bed.

"Pingu taught me," he murmured before turning and realising that Jones wasn't in a great position to take the food from him. "Hold on."

Dan put the food on the bedside table and slid his arms under Jones' chest and waist and Jones could feel the muscles and tendons in his arms as he shifted Jones up the bed and into a sitting position. He tried to help but Dan just tutted and muttered at him to stop it before he hurt himself.

When Dan was satisfied that Jones was upright enough and comfortable enough he handed over the mug of coffee and chuckled as Jones took a long gulp but Jones just gave him the finger and drained half the mug before putting it down on his side of the bed.

It was good coffee. The sort that filled your nostrils and made your mouth water before you even got it to your mouth, that was strong and creamy and barely bitter at all and tasted like a hot shower felt - so hot it was almost too much but so perfectly what you needed that it made you shiver even though you weren't cold. Jones loved coffee but he didn't discriminate, he would drink instant without complaint (because it was affordable) and he wasn't religious about milk or sugar, he took his coffee as it came, so long as it was strong. But this was really good coffee.

When he finally put the mug down Dan handed him the plate of pancakes and a knife and fork and Jones felt himself get a bit teary again, which was stupid because they were just pancakes and who got upset over pancakes? Except, they weren't just pancakes. They were perfectly round and perfectly golden and there were blueberries in them and honey on top of them and they looked more like a declaration of intentions than a meal. And Dan was looking nervous.

"Thought you might like something good for breakfast," he said, copying Jones and staring down at the plate. "Hospital food and all that."

"Aw, Dan," Jones whispered, trying to keep his voice steady. "That's absolutely sweet!" He cut into the stack slowly and put a piece in his mouth, aware that Dan was watching him intently.

Dan was fidgeting, a habit he'd picked up from him, and Jones hoped that the pancakes tasted good, so that Dan would stop looking like he was about to have a panic attack, but he also knew that Dan would know if he was lying to make him feel better. There was a lot riding on these pancakes.

He bit into the piece of soft, buttery pancake and closed his eyes. He'd had pancakes before but he couldn't actually remember when and couldn't recall what they'd tasted like then. But the pancake he was eating now was soft and fluffy, a bit like bread but lighter and a bit like a cake but not so crumbly and sweet enough that it made him think of lazy sunrises after all-night raves, without being so sweet it made his teeth ache. Then he bit into a blueberry and the pop, and the taste, like a tiny purple explosion, made him want to giggle.

"Dan," he whispered, letting his lips curve upwards but keeping his eyes closed to fully enjoy the flavour. "This is genius."

He heard Dan let out a relieved breath and opened his eyes. There was a tightness around the other man's eyes that was troubling but Dan was smiling. It was a wavering sort of smile, obscured a bit by his messy hair and three day old stubble, but it was there and Jones widened his own grin encouragingly.

"I wanted them to be perfect. For you," Dan told him and Jones nodded. He understood that.

"I ain't going nowhere, Dan," he told him. "Not without you."

More of the tightness eased from Dan's shoulders and Jones shoved another large piece into his mouth and groaned at how good it tasted.

"You'll have to beat me off with a stick before I'll leave," Dan muttered and Jones tried to laugh in a way that didn't aggravate his newly healed scars.

"Same with me," Jones told him. "Especially if you've decided to cook like this!" He took another bite of his pancakes and made a face at Dan that told the other man just how delicious they were before gulping down the rest of his coffee. "Hospital food wasn't that bad though. I mean, porridge is porridge, isn't it. The milk was always fresh. They did pumpkin soup and mash potatoes with plenty of salt... I've been eating a lot of mushy foods, haven't I?"

It was Dan's turn to chuckle at that and he scooted closer on the bed to press a kiss to the corner of Jones' mouth.

"You had a bit of honey," he said huskily by way of explanation and Jones grinned as he leaned forward for a second kiss.

Their lips moved slowly, lazily, against one another's, slightly sticky from the honey and warm from coffee and tea. Jones could feel the thrum of Dan's body, still tense with anxiety even while his lips surrendered softly to Jones' and opened to permit the tongue that Jones licked against them. Jones let his tongue stroke Dan's deliberately, feeling Dan sigh against him, giving in to the sensation, and brought his good hand up to hold Dan's cheek. Ever since he'd discovered, years ago, the way Dan could just melt, completely surrender himself when Jones gave the subtle sign that he was taking the lead, it had become like a drug.

Now that their relationship was public knowledge he was sure that people would look at them and assume that Jones was the one... well, submitting. And they had tried it the other way, and it was alright, but usually Jones was the one on top when they were having sex, slowly unravelling Dan's layers and layers of worry and frustration and fear. Not that they'd actually had sex in quite a while.

He pushed deeper, curling his tongue around Dan's and forcing a moan from the other man that vibrated through his mouth like bass through a dance floor. Dan would argue that of course. He always argued Jones' 'narrow view of sex' and counted handjobs and blowies as equal to full-on intercourse, which was reassuring in a way. Dan was easy to get off and moaned and panted and swore even if it was just a sloppy grope and neither of them had even managed to get their pants down properly. But he always moaned louder - and came harder - when he was on his knees with Jones behind him, and Jones wanted to feel him, and be surrounded by him, like that again. It was almost enough to get him hard. He _wanted_ to - he wanted to fuck Dan until he was a quivering mess on the mattress - but he was scared too, because he wasn't sure if he actually could. He still felt... broken.

He pulled back from the kiss as kindly as he could, running his thumb across Dan's lips, enjoying the sharp prickle against his skin that sounded and felt so much like trailing fingers along a brush fence. Dan tried to lean in again but Jones turned his head and stuffed more pancake in his mouth as fast as he could.

"Sorry," he said around the mouthful. " 'm just really hungry, and..."

He swallowed too quickly, feeling the food which had seemed so light before, pushing heavily against his throat and sticking halfway down, making him want to cough and gag which he couldn't do without hurting Dan's feelings even more.

"There's no rush, Jones," Dan's voice rumbled out, like thunder so distant the lightening wasn't visible yet. "Last night... Last night I misjudged what you were ready for, but..."

Dan was staring at his hands, twisted in his lap as he struggled to be sincere and Jones wanted to help him but he didn't know how. Talking about sex was more embarrassing than doing it! Was worse, for Dan, than talking about love. And Dan was trying to do both and it was beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Dan pleaded but Jones still felt the shame growing inside him, like a bath left to run until the water started to spill over and flood the whole room, neither hot nor cold just tepid and strangely uncomfortable against the skin.

"But I-"

"Don't have anything to be sorry for," Dan told him through clenched teeth. "We don't need to do anything. I like kissing you. I like touching you and holding you but it doesn't need to lead to sex. We had months after we first kissed where we did nothing _but_ kiss and it was wonderful."

Jones let out a hiccup at that - as the memory flooded his mind, the colours slightly faded like an old photograph - him and Dan, slow dancing in the kitchen, their lips pressing together so innocently Jones could barely believe it'd been real. He tried to apologise but Dan shook his head.

"Jonesy," his whispered, his eyes now focused on the empty breakfast plate in Jones' lap. "If we're going to be... out... as a couple, as an official couple, not just as friends but as an actual, romantic... as boyfriends, or lovers or whatever you want to call it, then maybe we should focus on other milestones."

"Like what?"

"Like," Dan took a deep breath and reached to take Jones' hand in his own. "Holding hands in public. Kissing in front other people - I don't mean snogging in the library or anything like that. Jones. Shut up. Stop laughing - I _mean_ not being afraid to kiss each other on the cheek or something when we're out of the house. And I want to celebrate our anniversary. And do couple type stuff at Christmas and-"

"You're such an old romantic," Jones chuckled, biting his lip to stop the laughter escaping.

"Shut up," Dan answered blushing furiously. "I want just you to be happy. And thought maybe we could, I don't know, go out to dinner as a couple, on a date, before we worry about you pouring a litre of lube into my arse and pounding me into the new year."

Dan's voice had taken on the rough, argumentative tone that had always reminded Jones of cheap coffee and cigarettes, as addictive as it was dangerous, and he grinned and ducked his head so that he could look up at Dan and catch his eye.

"Thanks," he said once he had Dan's attention and Dan glared at him before rolling his eyes and leaning forward to give Jones a quick, rough kiss.

"You're welcome."

"So, no sex then?" he asked, feeling strangely thrilled that he didn't have to worry about it.

"Not until you're ready and able," Dan grunted back. "I don't want to have to carry you to the hospital and explain that you injured yourself _in flagrante delicto_, do I?"

Jones grinned. Dan was doing his 'saucy face' and waggling his eyebrows in an attempt to make Jones laugh and it was working but it was a game they'd played before and he wasn't about to let Dan win this easily.

"I don't know what that means," he said, forcing himself to keep a straight face. Dan just lowered his head and looked up at him through lashes that were unfairly long given the size of his actual eyes.

"You're a smart boy," he said in a deep, creamy tone. "I'm sure you can figure it out."

Jones felt himself blush but there were still questions he wanted answered.

"And what if you... you know..."

"Now I don't know what you mean," Dan told him blankly.

"Well, what if you get all, you know, hot and bothered. From thinking 'bout me. As you do."

"As I do."

"Well what're you going to do then?" Jones asked, worried that he now sounded a little too serious, but Dan just gave him another wicked look.

"I'm sure I can get by with just the occasional shower wank for the next little while, don't you?"

Jones let out a huff of laughter but blushed again when he looked up into Dan's eyes and realised that Dan was absolutely serious and was happy to let Jones set their pace, even if he was still flirting enough to make Jones' entire face turn pink and blotchy.

"Actually," he said slowly, and Dan raised an eyebrow questioningly. "I could really do with a shower. If that's ok?"


	32. Chapter 32

Jones gasped as he felt Dan's soapy hands run over his nipples under the pretense of washing, although he was pretty sure that Dan didn't need to tease his nipples until they were achingly hard in order to clean them. But god, it felt good. He pressed back against Dan's chest, trying to steady himself on the wet tiles even though he was sure Dan's own footing was just as precarious.

The garbage bag taped over Dan's plastered leg rustled and Jones let out a breathy laugh that that particular sound was part of the soundtrack to their first naked time together in a month.

Dan had been so careful, so gentle, as he'd helped him to the bathroom and had left Jones alone to use the loo and brush his teeth whilst he went in search of a bag and tape for his leg, and the second he was out of the room Jones had begun the slow process of removing his clothes. By the time he got back Jones had freed himself from his tracksuit and was waiting by the shower, trying to breathe normally and not cover himself because Dan had been making himself vulnerable and Jones wanted to do the same for him.

It wasn't helpful that the Ashcroft's guest bathroom had a large mirror above the vanity which meant that Jones could see exactly how less than perfect his body looked.

The scars were barely formed. The stitches and staples had only been removed a few days ago and removing the dressings had been a little painful. The skin was fresh and shiny and scabbed in others and didn't seem like a real part of him. He had half expected it to wipe off when he touched one, but it'd just hurt instead. He tried not to count them all, because it made him want to cry and dig his fingernails into his palms just to distract himself because he looked like a Frankenstein reject, not to mention the fact that he was skinnier than a stray dog. Dan had promised he wasn't leaving but Jones needed him to see what it meant to stay.

When Dan opened the door and slipped in, locking it behind him, he'd frozen at the sight of Jones, naked and leaning against the glass wall of the shower. And Jones had believed in that moment that he'd actually changed his mind. He looked down to avoid having to see Dan's pity or worse, his distaste, but didn't want to look at himself, so closed his eyes instead. The space between them was too quiet but Jones couldn't place the feel of it, which was more frustrating than anything else. It felt thick but not murky or dark and it wasn't choking him, it was just...

And then Dan's fingers trailed up his arm, soft and sweet, and he smiled. Milk. The air and the silence around them was like milk - creamy and cool and a little strange, but not bad - just muted.

He'd felt Dan's lips as they placed kisses to his shoulder, soft as butterfly wings, and he squeezed his eyes shut tighter.

"You're so beautiful."

Dan's breath hitched against his shoulder and Jones felt his skin break out in goosebumps, his whole body quivering from the emotion pouring out of Dan like fizzy wine and the strain of keeping his body steady and upright. He tried to shake his head but Dan snarled possessively as he pressed his lips to Jones' neck.

"I'm-"

"You are."

"Dan-"

"I just want to kiss you," Dan replied in a low, rumbling tone. "But if it's going to make you uncomfortable, I'll stop. I want you to know that you're beautiful."

Jones felt the shivering get worse as he sagged against the glass but Dan tucked an arm around his waist and pulled him into a firm but careful hug.

"I like the kissing," Jones told him, pressing his nose to Dan's chest.

"Good," Dan replied. "Me too."

Dan had sat him down delicately on the side of the tub while he undressed himself and covered his cast but looked up sheepishly when he caught Jones watching him.

"What?"

Jones blinked. He'd been caught up thinking about how well Dan looked. He'd lost weight but he didn't look bad, he looked lean and Jones could see his arm and stomach muscles flexing as he moved, like waves rippling in the sea. He wondered whether Dan would take him swimming when summer came. That'd be genius.

"Nothing."

"Well that's a real ego stroker," Dan growled as he straightened up, rolling his broad, sloping shoulders but he gave Jones a crooked grin. "You stare at my naked body and all you think is 'nothing'?"

"I didn't mean it like that!" Jones squealed and felt his heart begin to pound against his rib case as Dan hobbled over and kissed him chastely.

"I know. Come on, into the shower. You smell."

They'd entered the shower gingerly, both unsteady on their feet, but Jones felt himself relax under the hot spray. When Dan carefully maneuvered them both so that Jones was leaning against his chest whilst Dan cleaned him with aching tenderness Jones felt a heat begin to coil in his belly that only increased when he felt the stirring of Dan's erection against his lower back.

And now Dan was plucking at his nipples and kissing and sucking his neck and he could feel the intense heat of Dan's cock but he wasn't trying to touch Jones below the waist and he wasn't actually making a move. And it felt nice. It made him feel that he would actually be ok, and Dan was holding him so safe and his long fingered hands seemed to hold their own strange kind of electricity as they brushed against his skin and Jones felt the breath catch in his throat as he decided what he wanted to do. Dan had agreed that it was Jones who would set the pace after all.

He reached up to clasp one of Dan's hands in his own and slowly but firmly guided it lower. Dan swept his fingers over the hair of Jones' concave belly, covering him with suds and rubbing his palm over one of Jones' prominent hip bones. Jones tried to breathe evenly but it was difficult because Dan was nuzzling his neck, his own breath coming out in sobs as he began to rub his hand against Jones' thigh.

"Jones," he rasped, and Jones felt his back arch in response, completely independently of his brain. "I don't want... We're supposed to be _not_ rushing."

Jones squeezed his eyes shut as tight as they could go and concentrated on the sensation of Dan's hand against his thigh, the movement sending thrills to his half-erect cock even though Dan hadn't even touched him there yet. He felt drunk. Like the world was shifting and expanding around him, moving every time he thought he was steady, and squeezing him until the pressure was so intense it forced a moan from his lips that was harsh and raw and which he barely recongised as his own.

"This ain't rushing," he gasped as Dan's hand moved in to stroke his inner thigh.

He tried to part his legs but it was too difficult and he didn't want to slip because he didn't want Dan to stop, but he wanted him to move his hand. Just a little closer.

"No?" Dan purred nipping his ear and sending shudders along Jones' spine which, even if they caused his healing bones and muscles to twinge, didn't make him want to stop.

"Nah," he breathed, lips shaking. "This is just what we agreed, right? 's just a shower wank. Just with... oh god Dan!... just with company, right?"

Dan's large hand took hold of his cock and Jones' ears were filled with his dark chuckle and he felt his brain begin to spin, like water down the plug hole. He tried to stop himself from sliding down against Dan, tried to stay upright, but all he could do was press himself against his lover and Dan moaned as his own cock was pushed against Jones' wet skin. He held them tight to one another as he began stroking Jones firmly, rocking himself forward until they were both panting raggedly and Jones found he couldn't open his eyes for the water pouring over them and all he could do was thrust weakly into Dan's hand until he came with a strangled, high pitched sob, trying not to collapse but unable to hold himself up. As the shockwaves died down Dan's hand left his spent penis and moved back up to his chest as he held Jones firm and rocked into him, the head of his cock sliding slickly against the curve of Jones' back.

He came with a gasp, shaking as his semen hit Jones' skin, rubbing against him as his chest heaved and his hands pressed against him almost too firmly. But Jones didn't mind. He felt like a weight had shifted, that the heavy stone that had been sitting in his belly was now, if not gone, at least a little lighter. But as he felt the weight lift the tears came, spilling over and burning his eyes only to be washed away by the shower, and he stumbled forward and pressed himself against the cold glass as he tried to convince his lungs to take in some air even though it ripped at his throat with each sob.

He didn't even know why he was crying but now that he'd started he couldn't stop. He was happy that he and Dan had been able to get off together. He'd wanted it, it had felt good, and they hadn't had to worry about angles or putting pressure on broken legs or anything. He'd wanted to do it, so why did he now feel like he was bobbing about in a sea of unwanted emotions?

He jumped when Dan's hand slid down his back, washing him clean and soothing all at once. He let himself be pulled back under the spray and when Dan kissed him their lips were wet and slippery and desperate and Jones grabbed at Dan's bicep as he bit the other man's lip, just enough to drag him in and push as much of their bodies together as he could.

"Jones," Dan gasped, trying to breath but just getting a mouth full of water instead. "You ok?"

"Fine," Jones panted back but Dan turned and switched off the water and ushered him carefully onto the bathroom mat before wrapping him in a large towel like he was a little kid. Like he was safe.

It made his heart hurt and he willed the tears not to start again but knew that Dan had seen.

"I'm sorry Jones," Dan whispered brokenly and Jones made himself look up at the man he loved, his brown curls dripping water into his eyes and down his tall, slender frame. He was beautiful, like some sort of mythic demigod - more than human with his glistening skin and brooding features - but sad too, and Jones wanted to hug him tight but settled for hugging the towel around himself instead.

"Don't be. I'm not."

"But-"

"But nothing," Jones said, a little too loudly but unable to control it.

"You cried," Dan pressed, reaching for a towel of his own and rubbing it harshly over his skin.

"Yeah," Jones huffed, then smiled and watched as Dan let his arm and the towel drop down to his side. "I cried. Like a proper big girl's blouse. But that doesn't mean it was a mistake."

Dan furrowed his brow and flicked his head to clear the wet curls from his vision but he looked at Jones in the way he always had, with his eyes open wider and less suspicious than normal and that not-quite-smile hidden beneath his stubble, and Jones took a deep breath, filling his lungs until they protested before continuing.

"I... was worried that I wouldn't be able to. Haven't had so much as a morning hard on since the accident. And I was scared that we wouldn't be able to make it work either, what with casts and braces and pinned bones and all the other shit..." Jones bit his lip, waiting to see if Dan would interrupt, but the other man remained silent, his eyes focused on the knot of scars on Jones' shoulder. "I'm still not ready to... do more than this. I just... It's a relief to know that I _can_. Oh, fuck now I'm gonna cry again."

He lifted the towel to his face and pressed it to his eyes, feeling like a toddler fresh from a bath, hiding in his towel as if it could keep out the cold air and delay the moment when he had to strip off in order to dress. Dan stepped forward and wrapped him up in a careful hug, sliding one hand into Jones' hair and the other around his waist, just holding him and letting Jones hear the throb of Dan's heart beat in the silent room, and feel the damp skin of Dan's chest against his cheek, anchoring him back down but not crushing him. Like a balloon around a child's wrist, he thought, free to bob and float while the child played but kept safe all the same. He wondered for a moment if that was how Dan saw him, like a balloon, bright and exciting but empty and stupid on the inside - and slowly deflating. But Dan would likely say, 'of course not,' and then get pouty over being likened to a child with a string tied to its wrist. Dan was good like that.

"Don't cry, Jones," he murmured as he stroked Jones' freshly washed hair. "You'll set me off and then I'll never stop..."

"...You take your tablets?"

"Yep. I'm being good, don't worry. And feeling sad's normal apparently, under the circumstances."

Jones burrowed his head more firmly into Dan and breathed in the scent of his skin. Dan always managed to smell like a half drunk cup of tea, gone slightly cold with the bag left in, even when he was shower fresh, and Jones wondered if it was because he'd consumed so much tea in the course of his life that it just seeped out through his pores at all times. By that logic Jones figured that he should probably smell of coffee, but he'd never quite figured out how to smell his own scent, other than checking his armpits for obvious sweat stink.

A kiss to his forehead snapped him out of his thoughts and Dan guided him back to sit on the edge of the tub to dry himself whilst Dan removed the tape and bag from his cast and finished toweling himself off.

"Let's get you dry and those new dressings on, hey?" he said softly and Jones nodded as he patted carefully at his chest with the towel. "Then when you're dressed I'll give you a tour of the coffee machine and make you a sandwich."

Jones had to grin at that. Dan Ashcroft, the king of uncaring, misanthropic cool, who'd once ruled the idiots and hated every second of it, who'd been hailed (against his will) as a self-destructive, twenty-first century, ironically detached hero... wanted to make him a sandwich. And was happy to trade sex for snuggles. And loved him, broken bits and all.


	33. Chapter 33

**I'm trying to figure out how to wrap up this story, otherwise it'll just be me writing to myself about random days in their lives with no plot or drama or anything. Just kissing and fluff. Sorry it's been a bumbled, uneven sort of story. **

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><p>"Oi, dick splash! Where are you?" Nathan Barley yelled into his phone, grinning at the bloke in the suit sitting across from him on the bus who was glaring at him and obviously unaware that he was a slave to the man.<p>

_"__Hi, this is Toby - well, Toby's mobile, my phone - leave a message and I'll call you back."_

"Hey, yeah," Nathan shouted, trying to pretend he hadn't accidentally tried to have a conversation with somebody's voicemail. "I'm back from Spain, you bum licker. La Spaniarda, El Espanio, where the pretty girls are desperate for a decent, British cock! As long as it's mine, yeah."

A woman sitting with a fat cheeked kid turned to shoot him a dirty look but Nathan knew she was just putting it on. People back home liked to pretend they were uptight, when really they just needed to remember the word according to Barley. And now he was back and he was going to give it to them.

"There was one chick, yeah? Tits like fucking bowling balls, right. And I smashed her back doors in! Right in! Then her dad comes running in, swinging a fucking bird at me - like, an actual, bird, like a chicken or some shit - and squealing like a fucking pig! All because she was was only fifteen or some shit. Foreigners, right, man? - _Holy shit! What the-_"

Nathan's head bounced off the metal rail of the seat in front of him with enough force to make him drop his phone as the bus stopped suddenly. He looked around to make sure he wasn't the only person to be caught off guard and realised that they were all staring at him, including the driver.

"Oi, mate, what's the hold up?" he called but the driver just pulled a lever and glared at him as the doors swung open.

"Get off my bus."

"What?" Nathan laughed. It was a joke but no one else on the bus seemed to get it. "Yo, my nigg-"

"Don't you use that word on my bus!" the driver shouted, getting out of his seat and looming over him. "For the last two months this route has been a pleasant and quiet route! Because you were not here to ruin it. You should have stayed in Spain, or wherever you were hiding. Now get off my bus! You are banned."

Nathan looked up at the man. He hadn't really thought about what the driver, who drove the route most days, would look like standing up but apparently he looked like six feet and three inches of bulk and if Nathan knew anything it was that he was weak enough to get beaten up by Claire Ashcroft and would not survive a bloke like this.

"You can't ban me from a bus, it's a bus," he whined. "That's not legal!"

"I'm banning you from my bus for bad language," the driver insisted, ushering him bodily toward the doors. "Or I can report you to the police for admitting to a bus full of people that you had intercourse with an underage girl. Your choice."

Nathan looked around but none of the people watching him were smiling and he was starting to think this wasn't a joke. He grabbed his suitcase and stumbled off the bus, scowling at the grin that appeared on the driver's face. He didn't reckon it was friendly grin.

He fixed his jacket as he strutted away and tried to ignore the cheer coming from the bus. He'd only been away for two months but things had definitely changed. London had lost its cool. And Toby wasn't answering his phone.

He pulled his latest model, extendable handle suitcase with light-up wheels, along the lane way to Pingu's building. Some serious shit seemed to be going down and he needed answers. Like, for a start, there was a great, fat orange eviction sticker on his front door and his key wouldn't go in the lock. If that was a prank it was a fucking good one but he didn't think Toby was smart enough to pull off something like that. Toby was dumb as fuck. He'd probably lost his phone again, that had to be the reason he wasn't picking up.

But his house wasn't the only weird shit going down. He'd passed the SugaRape offices on the bus and had thought to drop in to give Jonatton the down low on foreign girls and their deep love for all things anal - he reckoned Jonatton would jump at the chance to get Dan to do a story on that, especially when he heard that those girls liked tonguing arse as well. Dan would be massively angry and uncomfortable about letting someone tongue his arse! It'd be well bum, which was a royal pun - but all the 'Rape signage had been torn down and replaced with a For Lease sign. It didn't make any sense.

And there was a poster advertising Doug Rocket at the bus shelter - doing a collab with Dajve - and that guy was washed up! Everyone who was anyone knew that! What was going on?

He took the lift to Pingu's flat and banged on the door but didn't get an answer. Maybe the lazy ball licker was sleeping, or wanking into a pillow, but he had to be home. Nathan had closed down Trashbat just after he'd arrived at his parent's holiday home in Spain after receiving a very serious letter from Dan and Claire's mum's legal firm. First she'd totally toppled his plans for a TV Trashbat spin off and then she'd written to him to inform him that the content of his website could land him in serious trouble. She wasn't suing him, the old bint had worded it like she was doing him a favour, but she'd pointed out instances of what she called 'evidence of illegal activity' that could get him charged. He'd dismantled the site and hadn't bothered to tell Pingu, the idiot was probably still confused about why Nathan hadn't given him anything to do and Nathan tried to laugh about it as he banged on Pingu's door.

After several minutes, in which he pounded on, kicked, and swore at the door, which still didn't open, Nathan took a deep breath, readjusted his headset, and called Pingu.

"Hello?"

"PIIINNNGGGUUUUUU!"

"... shit. Hello, Nathan."

Nathan scrunched his nose up and glared at Pingu's door.

"Why the fuck aren't you pleased to hear my godlike voice, you butt munch? And why aren't you home? I need to take a piss."

He was used to Pingu leaving pauses on the phone, the guy didn't know how to hold a conversation, it was no wonder he'd never have a girlfriend.

"Where... where are you, Nathan?"

He could hear someone talking in the background and reacting to his name, and grinned.

"Is that Claire?" he asked but didn't wait for Pingu to answer before carrying on. "DOLL SNATCH! WATCHA DOIN' WITH ARSE-WIPE PINGU? YOU OWE ME A DATE! I WANNA NOSH ON YOU ALL NIGHT, SUGAR TITS!"

"Nathan!" Pingu said with more aggression than Nathan'd ever heard from him before. "She's in the kitchen with her mum! Claire's mum just heard you say that."

"Shit!" He started to pace back and forth in front of Pingu's door. He really didn't want to meet Claire's mum. She was a right dragon lady. Pingu really did have a death wish if he was hanging around that bitch. "Pingu, where are you?"

"I'm..."

Nathan could hear him breathing and felt himself getting cross because Pingu was holding out on him and they were meant to be mates and why was Pingu hanging out with Claire?

"Pingu?"

"I'm... in Leeds," came the barely audible reply.

"LEEDS?!" Nathan cringed at the thought of going somewhere so uncool. "Why the hell are you there, you brainless tit box?"

"I'm here with Claire," he sighed. "Visiting her parents. With Dan and Jones."

"But?" Nathan didn't get it. "Why are you visiting them? Who the hell is Jones? What the hell is happening Pingu? There's an eviction notice on my door!"

"Maybe you should call Toby," Pingu said calmly, but Nathan had gone beyond calm.

"He's not answering," he whined. "Where the hell is he?"

"Probably at work, or with Sasha. He's living with her now."

"What? He's tapping Sasha? The hot piece of front desk ass from SugaRape? And what's happened to 'Rape as well?! What the fuck is going on?"

His voice had gone high and girly but he couldn't stop it. He was really panicking now and he _really_ needed to piss.

"Look, Nathan, I have to go. We're picking up Dan in an hour."

"Picking Dan up from where? Where's Dan? Oi, wiat! You can't just go, Pingu. Where am I supposed to live?"

"Call your dad," Pingu said without emotion. "I'm sure he can sort you out. He was paying your rent anyway, and funding Trashbat after all."

"But can't I just-"

"No.

"Just until-"

"No."

"But I've got to take a slash!"

"Look," Pingu sighed, suddenly sounding so much more mature than he had any right to be. "There's a skip in the alley down the side of the building, you'll be hidden there. No one'll see you. Piss there. Don't call me any more please."

"But," Nathan didn't quite know what to say. Pingu always did what Nathan wanted, always played along. They were mates. "When you get back we could... do some stuff... or shit..."

"I've got a job. A proper job, at CBBC. I'll be getting a pension and everything."

"But we could just hang out. At your place?"

"I don't think so, Nathan. I don't think Claire will want you at our place."

"... What?" Nathan stared at Pingu's door and blinked. And then blinked again.

"Claire doesn't live with you! She lives with Dan. And that DJ."

"His name's Jones. And he and Dan are staying up here for a few months. Claire's... Claire and I... she's my girlfriend."

"WHAT?"

"I'm hanging up now."

"WHAT?"

Nathan listened to the silence after Pingu'd hung up, trying to make everything he'd just been told make sense. Pingu was tapping Claire Ashcroft. Toby was tapping Sasha. He was locked out of his apartment and his bladder was really, really full. He ran down the stairs, letting his suitcase bump noisily behind him, and burst out into the alley, unbuckling his trousers before he was even behind the skip.

Some old bird was back there, emptying out her vegetable peelings (or some geriatric shit like that) and she shrieked at him but he just winked at her and told her she was lucky, then gave her an extra viewing. Not every piece of muff got to catch a glimpse of his arse and dick, especially at her age, and he actually started to feel a better about the fact that the world had gone massively bizarro in his absence, as he watched her huff away. He definitely felt better once he had his dick in hand and was pissing his name along the alley wall.

Why were people so uptight? It never used to be this bad but it felt like everyone had gotten old and boring while he was away, which was well uncool. He wondered what Ashcroft would have to say about it. He'd probably preach it hard to those wage slaves and Nathan could provide some sick beats to back him up. Except that Dan was in Leeds. With Pingu and Claire. And that weird DJ they lived with who turned background sound at Stanley Knives and used second hand decks like a total reject. Nathan frowned. If Dan wanted a DJ mate then _he_ could do a much better job than that weirdo. That guy didn't even rap to his beats, he just made noise. Nathan could spin better than that. And he had state-of-the-art decks. It wasn't fair.

"Ahem."

Nathan turned at the sound of someone walking up behind him, ready to give them an ear bashing for perving on him while he was taking a piss, but the words died on his tongue when he saw the pair of police officers, one staring at his face, eyebrows raised, and the other staring at his exposed dick.

"Shit..."

"Well," said the taller of the two bobbies, a wry smile on his face. "I certainly hope not, young man. You're in enough trouble as it is."

Nathan's hand tightened convulsively around his prick but the rest of him was still frozen. This was well out of his narrative progression. He was the prankster, the happy larrikin, he didn't get busted with his designer denim round his ankles.

"How about you tuck yourself away, sunshine," the other copper told him, stepping forward and pulling out a pair of hand cuffs. "And then we'll take a little walk down to the station, alright?"

Nathan nodded and felt his lip tremble as he tucked himself away, dribbling a bit on his hands 'cos he'd been interrupted and hadn't had a chance for a proper shake to finish off. This was not supposed to happen. He was Nathan Barley. The star of the show.

He should have stayed in Spain.


	34. Chapter 34

**Sorry I've been slow in continuing. Sorry this is still going. Stumbling toward the end now.**

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><p>Harry sighed as he ended the call. With everything that'd happened he'd forgotten about Barley. Toby probably had too, he was that obsessed with Sasha. He'd texted Harry when Sasha had agreed they were officially a couple. He'd texted Harry when he'd been invited to move in with Sasha and her younger sisters. He'd texted Harry when he told Sasha he loved her and she hadn't said it back but was definitely thinking about it. He'd texted that morning to inform him, all in caps, that Sasha 'LUVS ME M8! LK 4 REAL! :D' and Harry hoped that Toby was in a good enough place that he wouldn't let Nathan bully him. Sasha would set the prat straight if he did try anything on but Harry silently hoped that Nathan would just fade away and leave them all alone.<p>

Claire was venting her frustration about all things Barley in the kitchen but instead of disputing it or telling her to quiet down her mum was agreeing whole heartedly. It was nice to hear them talking about (or rather, yelling about) something they shared the same opinion on, rather than just arguing. Claire was determined to go back to London at the end of the week, even though Harry wasn't starting at his new job until the end of the month, and refused to change her plans. It was causing tension to say the least.

He knew she was still scared. She wouldn't admit to it, but she'd talked and cried for two hours solid the night after Dan wrote her that letter, because being told she was forgiven wasn't something she was used to, it was like being told she was loved, Claire knew she was supposed to assume it, but she didn't actually hear it enough to really believe it, and that made Harry sad.

It had probably been a bit soon for him to tell Claire, 'I love you', it wasn't something Harry'd ever said to anyone other than his parents and his nan, but she'd needed to hear it. She'd been crying and raging about how oppressive it felt to be back in Leeds and how she wasn't sure how she was supposed to talk to Dan now, what with the letter and all, or how she was supposed to have a heart to heart with Jones when they still weren't really friends, and she'd been so disgusted at herself at not being able to handle her emotions, that Harry'd had to kiss her.

And when he said he loved her she'd done exactly what he thought she'd do, which was glare at him as if he'd made a really sexist joke, and then scoff in a way that was supposed to dismiss it. So Harry'd said it again, and again, and again, until Claire had laughed and hit him with a pillow until he'd fallen back against the mattress and she could straddle his waist and kiss him into submission. Harry loved it when she did that.

And after they'd had sex he told her again. And she'd smiled at him with her head down and her hair over her face, and her eyes creased around the edges from worry, and her hands hiding her breasts, and Harry decided he needed to tell her every single day until she believed it. He didn't even mind that she hadn't said it back, he just wanted her to see how easy to love she was, even when she was scary and shouty, or biting his shoulder as she orgasmed, or crying, or scared, or grumpy first thing in the morning.

And one day, hopefully, he'd be able to send Toby a giddy text all in caps, but that wasn't really the point. He loved Claire Ashcroft and he wanted her to know it.

He checked the time - he had to leave in ten minutes to pick up Dan - and jumped when he looked up and saw Jones in the doorway.

"Sorry," Jones said, grinning apologetically as he walked carefully over to an armchair and sat down.

"S'fine," Harry replied. "I was just checking on the time. I need to pick up Dan."

Jones nodded and chewed on his lip. They'd never talked much, even when Jones was sleeping on his sofa, but their silences weren't generally uncomfortable ones.

"Look, Harry," Jones spoke quickly, his eyes fixed on the bolt of his leg brace. "Thanks for all your help with Dan and me. And everything. It's been really... helpful."

Harry shrugged.

"That's alright. We're friends and... at least I think we're..."

"Yeah," Jones nodded. "We're friends. You've just been pretty fuckin' amazing through all this, you know? And with Claire as well. Claire's a lucky girl."

Harry felt himself blush and looked down at his phone. It had only been two minutes since he last checked but he needed something to do. Jones was still a massive flirt by nature and Harry knew he was sitting there with a cheeky grin, probably mostly unaware of the effect he had on just about everyone around him.

"Dan's lucky too," he said softly, and Jones' breathy laugh made him blush even more.

"Yeah, those Ashcrofts are damn lucky to have us."

Harry looked up and saw that Jones was red in the face too, smiling wide like he just couldn't contain it, and still looking down at his leg. Even when things had been really bad Jones had found ways to cheer himself up - sounds and colours and strange ideas - and Harry wished sometimes that he could experience the world like Jones did. But probably only for a day or so because Jones' sensory processing experience had always seemed fairly extreme and Harry wasn't sure it would always be pleasant, even if Jones seemed to enjoy it. Claire seemed to think Jones was a bit simple because he got distracted by tin foil and traffic noise, but Harry didn't think so. He'd known Jones a long time and even if Jones played loud and strange music, he could also build speakers and circuits from scraps and had helped Harry make a workable PC out of three broken laptops when they were teenagers. He just needed Claire and Jones to see each other for what was actually there.

"Speaking of Ashcrofts," Harry said, trying to segue smoothly even though Jones was smirking at him and shaking his head. "While I'm picking up Dan..."

He watched the smile drop from Jones' face to be replaced by a scowl. Jones hadn't been happy about Dan's decision to go to the hospital alone, and that Jones wasn't allowed to come and pick him up. He'd made himself clear through grumbles and an only half-audible rant that Jones needed to rest up and shouldn't be going on outings. They were heading to Hornsea in three days, a week earlier than planned so that Harry and Claire would still be around to help, and Dan didn't want Jones overdoing things.

He knew Jones was probably stuck between blaming Claire and blaming himself for Dan's protectiveness. He'd seen Jones blame himself for a burst pipe in the bathroom simply because he'd been the last person to take a shower, and he'd seen Jones blame himself for Harry having to move back in with his parents, sure that it was his bad luck infecting Harry by association. Jones probably hadn't been told he was loved enough either, (even though he'd overheard Dan say it to him several times while they'd all been staying together) and he thought that maybe that was why Claire and Jones didn't really get along. Neither of them believed in themselves and were automatically on the defensive with each other out of fear that they were being judged.

Harry frowned. That was a bit deep.

"While I'm picking up Dan... Claire would like to talk to you."

Jones looked up nervously, like he was going to be told off, and his hand automatically went to his discman, even though he had his music low enough that Harry could barely hear the noise coming from the headphones around his mate's neck. Claire had spent a great deal of time yelling at Jones to shut off his noise while she was living with him and Harry could understand Jones' worry. No one liked being yelled at by an angry Claire, even if Jones did a good job of pretending he didn't mind.

"She wants to say sorry, I think," Harry told him reassuringly. "But she's rubbish at apologising."

"Yeah, I'd noticed that."

"Well... she's scared."

Jones nodded. He didn't need as many words as Claire did, he mostly understood people's meaning by the way they said things, and Harry knew they'd be fine. As long as they actually talked together without being interrupted.

"I've got to go," he said, standing and looking around vaguely for the keys to the BMW Claire's dad had given him the night before. It was an old model but had been lovingly cared for and Harry knew it was a big deal that he was allowed to drive it to take Dan too and from the hospital. Claire had informed him that even Dan had never been given permission to drive it and Harry was nervous and sweating as he'd backed it out of the drive way that morning, until Dan told him about the time Claire managed to back it into the bins and scratch off a decent amount of paint when she was nineteen and cocky.

He spotted the keys on the sideboard near Jones' armchair but when he reached out for them Jones grabbed his wrist, looking up at him with large, earnest and rather glassy eyes.

"Bring him home safe, alright?"

Harry nodded but Jones didn't let go.

"Of course."

"And thanks, Harry. Really. Thank you."

Jones released his wrist and lifted his headphones up to his ears, wrapping his arms around himself and snuggling back into the arm chair as much as he could manage and Harry hoped he'd be ok. Jones deserved a break, the good sort, not just broken bones. He hoped he could get it.


	35. Chapter 35

"Jones!"

Jones jumped as one of his earphones was pulled sharply away from his head. His eyes snapped open and he looked up at Claire while his chest heaved with vague panic. He'd been listening to a mix he'd titled _'Dan's secret shame songs'_, the ones he'd never own up to liking if asked but that he cherished and listened to when he was alone in the bath or doing the dishes. Jones had put together the mix over a series of years, through stealth and serious listening, and he loved the eclectic mix of electro, emo, pop, old school rock and Alanis Morisette. Dan was a man of many secrets and complex tastes and Jones loved the fact that he knew him so well and yet was still learning new things.

His shoulder spasmed in retaliation to his jump of surprise and he winced as he removed his headphones completely, trying not to glare at Claire who, he was pretty sure, didn't realise what she'd done.

"Alright?" he asked, trying to shift himself on the armchair to be more upright and look more willing to have the conversation Harry seemed to think they needed to have.

"I brought you a cup of tea," Claire told him, holding the cup and saucer out in front of her like it was a venomous spider and Jones took it with a smile of thanks, careful not to knock the biscuits out of the saucer in the process. Biscuits with tea, with proper tea cups, seemed to be an Ashcroft family tradition that Claire and Dan were rediscovering and Jones hadn't been able to avoid having at least three cups a day, which meant six biscuits at least. He was actually worried that his trousers would start getting tight but he didn't want to be rude, and it was only for a few more days so for now he just put up with it. He put one of the biscuits down on the sideboard for later and blew on his tea, waiting to see what Claire would do.

"Did you... want to talk?" he asked once she was sitting comfortably in the armchair that Harry had been occupying earlier that afternoon.

"Not really," she snapped tiredly, bringing her tea cup to her lips to hide how she was feeling, only to let out a hiss as she burnt her tongue.

"Harry said-"

"Yes, well," Claire interrupted and Jones could see how hard she was trying to reign in her anger and decided it was probably best to let her get to things in her own time. "He's right, obviously. I just don't want to."

Jones studied the way her shoulders hunched around her tea cup and the strands of long, brown hair that had escaped her low ponytail. There was static in the air, like a storm was coming jones reckoned, and it was making her hair frizz. Everything about her reminded Jones of the tomcats he'd seen roaming the back alleys of Shoreditch. Some of them were beautiful and they could be friendly and even protective, coming up and rubbing his legs and purring as he tried to get comfortable on a bed made out of cardboard and newspapers, sleeping by his feet and hissing at anyone who came near - though he'd never figured out whether the cats liked him or just his body heat - still, it had made him feel a whole lot safer some nights. But during the day those same cats strutted about like they owned the street and wouldn't accept a pat from anyone. And that was Claire: she cared a lot and felt things really strongly but she wasn't about to let her guard down and show you that she cared. Claire was a prickly tomcat but Jones knew better than to ever tell her so.

He also knew that those same haughty toms had ducked and darted in fear when the men from the pub walked past at closing time, flinching before the boots even came close, because they'd learnt fear and pain and were all too aware of just how vulnerable they actually were. Claire could be like that as well.

"Thanks for the tea," he told her, dunking his biscuit in it until it was almost disintegrating then lobbing it into his mouth, savouring the hot, sweet, soggy mess.

"You're welcome," we replied, nibbling her own biscuit self-consciously. "Mum thinks you drink too much coffee so I thought, tea..."

"She's good your mum."

"Sure," Claire scoffed, then turned her head in embarrassment as Jones stared at her.

They sat in silence, listening to the clock tick, the whir of the dishwasher, the far off sounds of Catherine talking on the phone in her office and the radio murmuring in Roger's study. It was all very suburban, very alien, but it had a quiet rhythm to it that Jones liked, like the pad of trainers on concrete on those strange autumn mornings when the clouds were silver and bright and covered the whole of the sky and everyone and everything seemed distant.

It was nice, pleasant, but he could see why Claire hated it. She wanted to be edgy and forthright and be her own person. She just tried a bit too hard, and didn't seem to really understand the concept of tact. Jones would have given anything for a home like this growing up, two parents, siblings, bedtimes, vegetables. It was funny the things you ended up getting nostalgic about.

"I need to apologise," Claire said to her tea cup, her brows drawing together just like Dan's did when he was facing an uncomfortable reality. "I haven't said sorry about the article or the way I treated you. I haven't said thank you for giving me a place to live."  
>"It's fine, Claire," he told her. She wasn't the only one who didn't much like these kind of conversations.<p>

"But it's not really," she told him earnestly. "I was doing a film about the homeless and I nearly became homeless myself and _you_ gave me a room in your house and you..."

Claire bit her lip and Jones could feel the words she really wanted to say but was holding back. They were pressing against his skull, like the headache that came at the end of three days with no sleep and too much caffeine. Claire was trying to apologise but she wasn't going to get over things and move on - wasn't going to be properly at ease - until she'd satisfied her curiosity as well.

He looked at her, at the curve of her eyebrows that always made her look a little angry. She wanted a reason to feel sorry for him, Jones realised, because pitying him would make it easier for her to apologise and move on, and Jones didn't know how he felt about that.

"Is there something else you want to say, Claire?" he asked quietly, reaching for his second biscuit.

"Yeah, kind of."

"Well?"

"Jones..."

He wasn't going to make it easy for her. Part of him wanted to storm out, kick a chair and scream at the wall. Another part of him wanted to make her sweat, because she could be so damned annoying sometimes and she'd been filming 'the homeless' for months and she didn't get that it was hard to talk about.

"Jones, I... Harry told me that you lived with him for a while, slept on his sofa." Claire had her hands clasped in front of her and was talking in a formal voice that reminded Jones of Catherine, which Claire probably wouldn't be too happy about. He felt as though he was being interviewed which, he supposed, he was.

"Yeah, for a bit."

"Yeah, well... he mentioned that... you lived on the streets for a while. And I know it's none of my business but..."

"You're right, Claire," he told her. "It's none of your business."

"You're dating my brother."

"Dating?" Jones blinked. "Claire, me and Dan aren't dating. We've been living together since I was seventeen. We're a bit further on than dating. And Dan never tried it on," Claire rolled her eyes but he shook his head at her skepticism. "It's true. I kissed him. After I turned eighteen. But that's not even the important bit, Claire. You don't get it."

He could feel the tears starting to prickle in the corners of his eyes and tightness in his throat that made it difficult to keep talking calmly and reasonably. He wanted to get this over, to tell her what she needed to know, rather than what she wanted. And to do that he needed to not cry.

"What do I not get?" she asked him, her voice back to being calm and steady while her hands fluttered in her lap like frustrated moths.

"Your brother," Jones whispered, his throat too tight to allow any more noise than that. "He saved me, Claire. I know he can be a bit... sarcastic and grumpy sometimes but... he saw me sitting out the front of my house, crying my eyes out, and he stopped to help me. My mum'd just died and I was on my own and..."

It was a hard memory to return to, let alone in the company of someone who didn't understand, and Jones felt a slight tremble go through him as he remembered his mother's house.

"But if you met Dan when you were living at home," Claire said in a voice that she probably thought was reasonable but was verging on patronising. "When were you homeless? Why were you homeless?"

"I... why do you think people end up homeless, Claire?" Jones asked her, taking a deep breath to calm the ache building in his chest.

"Well, a lot of them are junkies," she told him, her voice still overly sincere. "They couldn't cope with their addiction, got into debt, ended up on the streets. Were you-"

"I don't do drugs!" Jones snapped. "I've already told you that. My mum was the junkie, Claire! Most kids on the streets aren't there cos of anything they did, we get there 'cos our parents are shit! They throw us out, or try and tell us that if we want to stay in their house we should consider being more accommodating to their 'clients' when they're round at the house. Like being fondled by some greasy-fingered old geezer with breath like canal water is something I should be happy to put up with. They beat us and tell us we're worthless and we either run or get kicked out. That's the truth of it, Claire. It's not some tale of vice and how I clawed my way back up. And it's not some tragedy about a boy who lost his beloved mummy. And I ain't perfect neither, it ain't some happy ending telemovie. I'm not some hero or martyr or activist or example. I don't want to be held up as the popular face of why straight people should care about queers, or why happy families should keep thanking God at their dinner table cos it's me and not them. I don't want to have to talk about it or think about it. It's bad enough that I dream about it. And maybe I didn't tell you cos I don't want to advertise it, and because I don't want to be in your documentary, letting people use me as emotional porn."

He took a deep shuddering breath, trying to clear the high pitched ringing in his ears that was lacerating the careful silence of the Ashcroft residence. He closed his eyes tight, willing the tears to back off but they wouldn't budge. He heard the rustle of Claire's trousers as she stood up and crossed the room, and the shift in the air in front of him as she knelt down next to his chair. He still jumped though, when her hand came to rest lightly on his knee and the sharp ringing was still distorting his hearing when she whispered,

"I'm so sorry, Jones."

He leant forward as she hugged him awkwardly and felt her fingers edging around the light, stick-on bandage he still wore on his shoulder and knew that the apology was for more than just the things they had talked about directly just now. And even if they'd got to it in a less than comfortable way Jones could at least feel that she did mean it. He hadn't actually needed to hear it, but reckoned that Claire might've needed to say it.

"Thank you, Claire," he told her soberly. "I forgive you."

He didn't feel like crying anymore but Claire was, he could feel her tears making the shoulder of his t-shirt damp as she took heaving, sobby breaths. He patted her back and rubbed his hand along her spine like Dan sometimes did for him when he was scared or upset and it seemed to calm her down.

He kept it up until she started to get self-conscious, then slowly moved his hands to allow her to move out the hug with as little awkwardness as possible. Claire sat back on her haunches and narrowed her eyes as she looked him up and down and Jones couldn't help but laugh.

"What?"

He shook his head but she asked again so he told her:

"You look like Dan when you do that. Making shifty crab eyes at people."

"I do not," she retorted but smiled at him and Jones took a moment to appreciate that she really was quite pretty when she wasn't trying to act so serious.

He was about to tell her so but then he heard the metallic scrape of the key in the front door lock and sat up straighter. Dan was back.


	36. Chapter 36

"You're late."

It wasn't the best first line but Dan didn't seem to mind. He walked slowly forward into the room and Jones tried to take in everything at once, like staring at a painting until you'd memorized every brush stroke and every tiny dab of blue amongst the green and grey and yellow. Dan looked tired and that tightness was there around his eyes which Jones knew meant he was feeling more vulnerable than he was letting on. His skin was puffy and dry and he had some of the worst bedhead ever seen and Jones wondered just how quickly he'd decided to leave the hospital after the procedure. He was leaning heavily on his cane but the plaster cast was gone, replaced by a thick, foam boot like footballers wore when they wanted to show that they were really injured and hadn't just been faking it for a bit of drama, and Jones felt his lips twitch at the thought of Dan doing anything even remotely athletic.

Dan smiled too, and Claire scrambled out of the way as he lurched forward with a surprising amount of speed until he was standing in front of Jones' chair, his face shadowed by the light directly behind him. Seven years and he still managed to look like the same scruffy angel who'd bought him his first cup of coffee and showed him that not everyone wanted to use him for their own ends and then throw him away.

He held out his free hand and Jones took it, feeling his fingers slide against Dan's palm, their skin smoother than it had been in a long time through forced rest, and allowed Dan to pull him to his feet.

"You're late," he whispered again, not judging or telling off or anything like that, but so that Dan would know how much Jones had missed him.

"I know," Dan replied in the same tone. "The doctor was a prat, wanted me to stay an extra two hours to see whether I could support my weight then gave me a lecture about not doing too much weight bearing."

"What a prick," Jones agreed, nuzzling his face into Dan's chest and feeling those familiar arms wrap around his waist. "I like your fancy boot though."

"Moon boot," Dan mumbled into Jones' hair, pressing his nose to Jones' head as he mussed at it, trying to bring their bodies as close as possible, to simply feel the heat and life of each other.

Jones' felt his smile widen. Dan smelled of hospital - harsh and sharp against the nose - but beneath that was the tea and biscuit and cigarette smell, like the opening credits of a black and white film, and Jones let it wash over him. He could hear Dan's heart as well. The steady thump of it calmed him down like nothing else and was making him sleepy too. Dan had explained it once, how listening to someone's heart beat was relaxing because it tapped in to every person's experience of being in the womb and having their mother's heart beat keeping them regulated and alive. Jones wasn't a fan of his mum but he liked the idea that every single person started out listening to a beat and still needed it to balance things out every once in a while, even as adults.

He yawned into Dan's shirt, feeling the tug of his flesh around his ribs that didn't really hurt anymore but still felt strange. It was nearly five in the afternoon, too early to go to bed, too late to nap, but Jones desperately wanted to snuggle up against Dan and just hold him and lose himself in that deep, steady beat for the next twelve hours. He still wasn't used to sleeping so much, or how his body could suddenly shut down, tiredness hitting like an unexpected rain shower, drenching him in seconds and leaving him with no option but to give in and sleep. It made him feel old but Dan insisted that it just made him normal. Secretly Jones thought that that might be worse.

"You okay?" Dan asked, not moving his face from the crown of Jones' head.

"Yeah... Moon boot's a genius name. Space age."

He knew he wasn't making much sense. The longer he stayed wrapped in Dan's arms with his ear pressed to Dan's ribcage the more tired and disjointed his thoughts were becoming. He hummed happily into Dan's chest and Dan's returning chuckle sent a thrill along his spine.

"I think we're both a bit sci-fi now," Dan's voice rumbled.

"Yeah," Jones responded sleepily. "Total cyborgs now. Bisexual cyborg lovers from the future. That's genius."

"It sounds like prog album."

"Genius," Jones slurred.

He tried to open his eyes but couldn't. He was too comfortable but Dan probably wasn't. He felt Dan shift, straightening up like he'd shared the thought and Jones did the same, though he didn't let go.

"Shall we," Dan sighed. "Shall we just go to bed?"

"What about dinner?" Jones said, his lips barely moving as he tried to stay upright. The world was spinning around him, even though his eyes were closed, and he felt like he was floating in ink.

"I don't need it if you don't. Come on."

He pushed Jones' crutch into his hand and held onto the other firmly and Jones forced his eyes to open grainily as they moved toward the stairs, their bodies swaying in time to the thuds of their canes on the carpet and shoulders bumping together, Dan's fingers wrapped protectively around his.

It seemed to take an absurdly long time to get up the stairs and into the bedroom. Each step was an effort and Dan's breathing was juddery and uneven, like a rickety fan on rotate, and when they finally got there both men fell to the bed, breathing hard.

"There aren't," Jones asked between ragged breaths. "There aren't stairs at the place in Hornsea are there?"

"No," Dan replied, equally breathless. "It's tiny, smaller than our house. Sitting room, bedroom, study, kitchen, lean-to bathroom at the back. The only steps are the ones down to the beach."

"Good," Jones sighed, letting his eyes close again and relaxing into the soft bedspread.

He couldn't wait to get there, to potter around at the seaside like a proper convalescing couple with no one to worry about but each other.

"Hey, don't fall asleep yet," Dan whispered but Jones just let out another sigh.

Dan tutted and began the job of removing Jones' leg brace, sliding it away carefully before starting on the button of his jeans. The sensation of Dan's fingers against his bare stomach and thighs sent a surge of strange, tingling nerves to Jones' belly but he was too tired to explore it and after pressing a kiss to the trail of hair from Jones' belly button to his groin Dan moved back and carefully removed his own leg support and track pants, wincing as his hand brushed against the dressing that covered his sutures.

When he felt Dan collapse next to him on the bed with a groan he rolled toward him, shifting his hip so that he wouldn't wake up to a throbbing, painful leg and felt Dan do the same. He tried to laugh at the delicate kiss that the other man pressed to the tip of his nose but it came out as just air, and before he had time to try again he was asleep.


	37. Chapter 37

_Dear mum,_

_Hello. We made it to the shack, we're fine and we've settled in. We put all the food in the fridge and yes we will eat it rather than living on pot noodles. Happy? I'm sure Harry and Claire have already given you their field report to say that the house is in order and all the lights work and someone came round today to set up the wifi, hence the email._

_We're both doing well. Jones is fiddling with Grandpa Hugh's old sound system and I've created a list of all the books I'll be reading from the study. Yep, we're living hard and fast. _

_The weather is cold but not too extreme. The sea is clear today and I dug out dad's old telescope. Jones wanted to try and see France through it but I pointed out that we were opposite Denmark and that he probably wouldn't see it, even on a clear day, and he was disappointed. Then he stumbled upon your crochet needles and a bag of wool in the bedroom so the first thing our internet was used for was Jones downloading a crochet tutorial. You'll probably be getting an ugly blanket for Christmas, just so you're prepared. _

_I don't really know what else I'm supposed to say but I knew you'd be wanting some sort of update and this is easier than calling you._

_Love to you and dad,_

_Dan._

* * *

><p><em>Dear Daniel,<em>

_It was a lovely surprise to wake up this morning and find an email waiting for me, thank you, but do try and get to bed before midnight in future. _

_I'm glad to read that you're both settling in well and please tell Jones to do whatever he pleases with the old record player, I'd forgotten it was there and he will get much more enjoyment out of it than anyone else. It's his if he wants it. The same applies to the wool and needles. The craft shop in the village should still be there and if he asks for Maurine I'm sure he will be able to pick up more patterns and yarn at a good price. I would be overjoyed to receive a blanket for Christmas and can't imagine anything made by that boy being even remotely ugly. I have no idea what to get the two of you for Christmas. It's less than one month away and I haven't even begun to plan for it. Is there something you would both like?_

_Your father has some unusual books in that study so do keep that in mind when you go exploring. He used to find taxidermy fascinating but in my opinion those books are just unsettling. There is however, a lovely collection of Sherlock Holmes books in there, which I do recommend and there's a bookshop just down from Maurine's. You could pick yourself up a cookbook if you like. _

_Do remember to continue with your exercises, love. I don't want you getting slack just because you're on holiday. You're still too thin and you need to build up muscle in that leg of yours. Jones too._

_Also, darling when is Jones' birthday? I'd like to do something special for him._

_Your father sends his love. He's retiring at the end of the year which just means that he'll be writing on his blackboard in the study rather than in a classroom but he says he has some interesting wires and circuit boards that he wants to show both Jones and Harry._

_Harry's lovely, isn't he? He and Claire are back in London now, and it's very quiet again here. Harry's started his new job, working for a children's television channel of all things, and Claire has just gotten a job working for her friend, Leta. Have you met her? She sounds nice. Motherly, which is probably what Claire needs. Harry sent me an email as well, the other day, which is how I know what they're up to. He's a very good boy. Which is not to say that you and Jones aren't. I'm just glad that Claire has found someone with a bit of sense. There were a few years there when your father and I worried horribly about you both._

_Anyway, I should be getting on. I'll be retiring soon as well, possibly at the end of next year, but I have a few projects that will be keeping me busy when I do. I was chatting to your friend Sasha only yesterday, she's a wonderful young woman, and I've put her in contact with some people who will be able to settle her into a good position once she graduates. _

_Goodness, look how much I've written. You probably won't read it all, but that's alright, I know you are busy with other things right now. I hope that you and Jones are enjoying your quiet time together. Early to bed remember._

_Love,_

_Mum._

* * *

><p><em>Dear Mum,<em>

_I am really hoping that you weren't making insinuations there, about Jones and me having 'quiet time' and how I'm 'busy with other things'. Inappropriate, mum. 'Early to bed?' Funny, but a bit scary. Jones blushed so hard I thought he was going to burst when he read that. Mum's aren't allowed to do that sort of thing. (Love you.)_

_We're fine by the way. We're both spending more and more time without the leg braces and I can walk properly again, though it does feel weird, like walking on cotton wool. I think Jones is a little upset that I've healed up better than he has. He's still in pain. I don't like it. I don't like seeing him hurt and frustrated. He's trying hard but the leg is just weak. The doctor says it might be like that from now on. But his shoulder is doing well and he was absolutely chuffed to be given permission to mess about with the record player. He's named it Hugh and has rigged it up to the laptop dad gave him. He's at the beach right now, recording the sound of the waves to use for some sort of new track he's creating. _

_I can see him from the window, so you don't have to worry that he'll get into trouble or anything._

_I've never met Leta but she runs a soup kitchen and Claire is a bit frightened of her so I assume she's a good sort of person and, yes, Harry is wonderful and we are all very lucky to have him around. Claire is a lot more bearable with him around._

_Yes, Sasha is lovely as well. _

_Jones' birthday is May 21st and he has met Maurine and she gave him a whole lot of free wool because she says he's a 'cute, London ragamuffin' and she's never heard of a man crocheting before. He's basically charmed the entire town. They were a bit wary of us at first but then Jones started referring to me as his boyfriend and holding my hand when we were getting chips and suddenly we're the lovable village queer couple. _

_Small town people are supposed to be less liberal than Londoners, so how did this lot get so gay friendly? Possibly it's just Jones. Probably it's just Jones. He's even going to be the DJ for the local Christmas dance. I made him promise to only play Christmas carols and family friendly pop songs and he's agreed because even if they make stupid, accepting grins when they see us out together I don't think they're quite ready for the full DJ Jones experience. It's a bit terrifying._

_I'd forgotten how nice it was down here, Jones keeps pointing out that it smells different and sounds different and that the light is different here. He's in his element. If you wanted to get him some paints for Christmas or his birthday or something he'd like that. He's got itchy fingers and needs to be doing things all the time. He crochets in bed. I woke up to one of those hook things in my back this morning, which he thought was hilarious._

_I've been writing a bit. It's not good but it passes the time. Dad's books are creepy._

_I can't imagine you retiring but to be honest I thought that dad'd retired years ago._

_Love,_

_Dan._

* * *

><p><em>Dear Daniel,<em>

_I'm glad you're both doing well, tell Jones not to be too cross at his body, it's doing the best it can, and so is he. Sometimes things take longer than we would like. _

_After a long talk your father has agreed that a car journey to Hornsea is not in fact a bad idea and so it has been decided that he, Claire, Harry and I will be coming out to visit you two for Christmas. We'll be staying at the B&B on First Street so you don't need to panic about us all descending upon you and spoiling your privacy._

_I'm pleased to hear that the locals have taken to you both. You are right, Jones is hard not to love, but so are you, dear. You are bristly and a bit standoffish but there's something about you that people seem drawn to. I think they see your intelligence without you realising it. Like a Romantic poet, brooding and sad, your father says, which is quite an observation from him, don't you think?_

_I'm glad that you're writing again too. I still have your short stories, the ones you wrote for school and college. They're really lovely, Daniel. I'd be honored to read any new stories, just to provide feedback, but I understand if having your mother read over your work would be a little embarrassing. You are a very talented young man, Daniel, even if you don't see it. I know that you know that you are intelligent but you are creative too, you just have to relax and let it happen. _

_And I did not mean to embarrass Jones. I may have meant to embarrass you but that is a mother's prerogative. I'm not so naive as to think that all you do is hold hands and kiss one another on the cheek. I've seen you do that enough times to know that it seems to be one of your favourite pass times but I know it isn't your only one. I also know that when too many things get in the way of a relationship rebuilding the physical side of things can be difficult and that as you both recover bodily you should be spending time together, in that way. Embarrassing but important. Grow up, Daniel, and show that young man of yours how much you love him, I mean it._

_And did you know that Claire managed to get a new grant for her film? It's being sponsored by the Department of Education, which is wonderful news, and has made her feel much better about herself. She was feeling quite disgruntled about the whole thing._

_My love to you both,_

_Mum._

* * *

><p><em>Dear Mum,<em>

_Christmas sounds wonderful. I know you probably think I wrote that sarcastically but I actually mean it, it'll be good to do a family Christmas. And I have (almost) mastered the art of roast veg so we can have a home cooked meal and all. I made Jones bread and butter pudding yesterday. It turned out pretty well._

_Also, thank you for taking an interest but please never ever try to talk to me about my sex life again. Ever. Even if you're tiptoeing around it with talks about rebuilding physical relationships. We're fine. We'll get to all that when we're ready, probably. But we won't be fine if I start thinking about you thinking about us going at it. Sorry mum, that's just the way it has to be._

_Anyway, it's good to hear about Claire, she deserves a break. _

_I don't know about you reading anything I've written though, it's really not good. And I'm not that intelligent, I'm just smart enough to know that I'm more intelligent than the average idiot. Sorry. Plus, any talent I might have had has probably been burned out of me from all those years at the magazine. I wouldn't mind writing music reviews again but everything else is just mad scribblings and disjointed memories. _

_And a lot of it, it's a bit autobiographical. A lot of it's about Jones. I don't know if it'd be fair to show anyone before I show him. He hasn't been that happy the last few days. I'm not sure why, he's just, well, not that happy._

_Maybe his leg hurts._

_Love you._

_Dan._

* * *

><p><em>Dearest Daniel,<em>

_When you say, not that happy, what do you mean?_

_And don't worry about me being offended, love. It's your writing and your thoughts, I wouldn't want to intrude upon that. Writing is a very personal thing. You used to write poetry for a while, when you were a teenager. I've still got your notebooks, they're with the short stories you wrote, but I haven't read any of them. Poetry is like that, one needs to be invited. So if you don't want to show me what you're writing then that is perfectly alright._

_Please give Jones my love. Tell him that we all love him very much. I am so looking forward to seeing you both soon. Christmas is in ten days and I just don't know what to get Claire._

_Has Jones done his dj thing at the Christmas dance? How did it go? _

_Love to you both,_

_Mum._

* * *

><p><em>Dear Mum,<em>

_Jones' DJing went fine. He was probably a little bored just playing 'normal' music but I think he had fun._

_What do I mean by not happy? Mum, I'm not actually sure. Because we still haven't really done much more than kiss since we got here, which is fine, but I think he's blaming himself and I know I said we weren't allowed to talk about this but I'm worried that he thinks he's broken or that I'm not going to love him or find him attractive. He's never given a toss about the scar on my shoulder, from the chip pan, but he seems to think that I'm going to be disgusted by his scars. And I thought we were past it, I thought we'd had this conversation, but I think he's still stuck on it. During the day it's fine. He'll hold my hand when we go out and kiss me and let me kiss him and we'll hug. But at night he freezes up when I try to even touch him. I know it's only been a couple of months since he got hurt and I know I promised to give him time and I really don't care about the sex, I just want to be able to hold him and for him to not be scared. _

_And I don't know what to do. We're getting along fine, we talk, we laugh, we argue, we go for walks on the beach and to the chip shop and he's let me listen to the new music he's creating on his laptop and it's really brilliant. So amazingly brilliant. I've just about figured out how to play that stupid Minesweeper game on my computer and he's using his to create music that has so much meaning to it that it physically hurts. _

_But I don't know what to do. _

_I thought being here would make us closer, that we'd talk or something, but I'm no good at talking, still. You always seem to know what to say, Claire never shuts up, even dad mumbles while he works and knows how to control a class, but I can't manage a fucking conversation. With the person I love. In what way is that fair? _

_I want him to know that I'm in this for forever and that I'm never going to leave him but I don't know how. I can't write him a letter. I've thought about it but it's too formal and he'd panic and think it was just another way he wasn't good enough. He reads slowly and thinks it's because he's stupid and when I tried to tell him once that he's probably dyslexic he took that to mean that he's not only stupid but unworthy as well._

_Sorry, mum. I don't know whether any of that made sense but I'm too scared to read back over it in case I chicken out and don't send it. So I'm hitting send now._

_Love you,_

_Dan._

* * *

><p><em>Dear Daniel,<em>

_I wanted to call you straight away when I read this as it has just popped up in my inbox, but it is ten past midnight and I don't want to wake you if you're sleeping. I will call you tomorrow but for now my love I want you to know that you do not need to apologise for writing to me about this and that you do not need to be embarrassed. _

_Daniel, I love you. And I'm sure Jones does too._

_What he went through was hard, love. It was hard for both of you and it breaks my heart that you both went through so much and that I wasn't there to pull you out of it in time. I'm sorry, Dan._

_And I'm sorry that your heart and mind are in such turmoil. I cried a bit reading your email because I could feel how much it was hurting you. But you are doing so well in giving Jones time and respecting his boundaries and limitations. I'm proud of you. And it could just be that what is needed is for you to continue to do just what you are doing until he finally feels comfortable again._

_It is a hard situation my love, and you are doing a good job._

_I did think, perhaps, that there might be other ways to show him how you feel, or to begin the conversation at least. Are there songs you could play him? Things you both like that would get across your meaning. Your father sometimes puts on Moon River, because it was in the first film he took me to, on our first date. It's his way of showing that he's thinking of me, and gives us an excuse to dance together and reconnect. Perhaps there are songs you and Jones share?_

_He's a very visceral, tactile sort of person. He's sensory, gustatory. Make him his favourite meal, make him another bread and butter pudding. Do something special with his coffee. I don't know if I'm helping or just bombarding you with suggestions, oh dear._

_You could always show him your writings. Are they in a journal or notebook? I know you say he finds reading confronting but letting him read your own thoughts is a show of your trust in him and if he were allowed to take it away and read it at his leisure, perhaps that would remove some of his anxiety over needing to read at a certain pace? Or to respond in a certain way?_

_I wish I could fix this for you, love. I wish I could tell you to leave it with me and that it would just get solved. But it's too important and it's your hill to climb._

_I will call you tomorrow, Daniel. And in the meantime I love you very, very much. You are a good boy, a good man I should say, and you are doing well and I am proud of you._

_Goodnight, love._

_Love,_

_Mum._


	38. Chapter 38

**Just a quick note to say that I'm heading off on a holiday for a week and don't know if there'll be internet so updates might be slow for a bit. Ta.**

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><p>"Hello?"<p>

Catherine sighed in relief, letting out the breath she hadn't realised she was holding, closing her eyes in a smile at the sound of her son's voice.

"Daniel, hello."

"Oh, hi. Hi mum," Dan responded awkwardly. "How are you?"

"Not too bad. I'm having an early lunch, then I've got meetings all afternoon. How are you?"

"... Alright."

Catherine Ashcroft had come to the parenting game late, at least compared to her contemporaries, and she had spent a great many sleepless nights whilst pregnant with Dan rubbing her hands over the tight skin of her swollen belly and worrying that she simply did not have the mysterious, maternal instinct that her mother had seemed to have in such quantities. Sometimes she still wondered when most of her parenting powers were going to kick in. At other times, like now, all her son had to say was, 'Alright' after a significant pause and alarm bells began to blare inside her brain. 'Alright' could mean a lot of things and right now it meant: 'Not alright at all'.

"Daniel."

"I am. I'm fine."

She changed tack. Children were like a game of chess, or so her husband claimed. Sometimes you needed to employ a bit of misdirection, and you always needed to think a few moves ahead.

"Did you get a chance to read my email this morning?"

"Last night, actually."

She held the phone away from herself before sighing because she could practically hear Dan's nervous foot shuffling at the prospect of being told off.

"Well no wonder you sound the way you do," she said as calmly as she could. "Did you sleep?"

"I did. I promise," he croaked. "I just sound rubbish. I'm fine."

"And where are you now? Are you at home?"

She was trying not to push, or be nosey, because Dan would nearly always push back and act out when he felt threatened, but she was desperate to find out how he was actually feeling.

"No, actually we're in the village," Dan told her, his voice still throaty and broken. "I needed to get some prescriptions filled."

"... Daniel, why do you sound that way? What's happened?"

"Nothing, I just..." she heard his breath hitch and, against the soundtrack of the cheerful village street, it made her heart bleed. "I... I almost didn't get my anti-depressants refilled. I..."

"Why not?" she asked, barely audible.

"I don't know. I walked in to the pharmacy and just suddenly thought, what if I didn't give them this one. They'd never know. What would happen if I just stopped taking them."

A tear rolled down the curve of her face and Catherine didn't bother to wipe it away. She was sure there'd be more. She could fix her make-up later, right now she needed to cry a few tears on behalf of her son.

"Love, please tell me you got your prescription filled."

"... I did."

"And is that the truth?"

She could hear his breathing, and cars and people passing in the street, and she knew it hurt Dan to have an exposing conversation in public, because she knew it would hurt her.

"Yeah," he said eventually, drily as though his throat was too tight.

And she believed him, which she supposed could be those parenting powers finally kicking in.

"Good, just checking. I'm proud of you, Daniel."

"Yeah?"

"Yes."

Dan chuckled, dark and self-deprecating.

"I'm a bit of a fuck up, mum."

"No, you're not."

"I've done practically nothing with my life. I'm thirty and what've I got to show for it?"

She wanted to tell him again about how brilliant he was, how it didn't matter whether he had a fancy career or a list of achievements after his name, or a house, or a job, because he was loved and he was the sort of person people felt privileged to know, and he had a loving partner, and he was wading through his demons with a courage that she marveled at. But she couldn't say that, not right now, because Dan wasn't particularly good at phone conversations, and he probably wouldn't believe her if she started gushing like a proud mother hen.

"You're not a screw up, love. You've just been... taking the scenic route through life."

"The scenic route?"

"The long way round."

"The long way round?"

"...Yes."

"I'm a fuck up, mum."

Catherine closed her eyes, forcing the tears that had been gathered in the corners to finally fall.

"But I will love you no matter what."

"Thanks, mum."

She nodded. Her lunch break was running out fast and she needed to ask a few more questions.

"Where's Jones?"

"Chatting to Maurine."

"And how does he seem today?"

"I don't know," Dan sighed tiredly. "Fine, I guess. He kissed me good morning."

"I get to see you next week. I'm looking forward to that. I can give you a hug."

"Mum."

"Don't you 'mum' me. You are going to let me hug you."

"Fine."

"And you will get through this, love. You both will."

"I... I don't know if we can."

"You can," she told him vehemently before reigning in her own emotions. "Why do you think you can't?"

"I'm... frightened," he whispered into the phone. "Terrified actually."

"Of what, exactly?"

"...I don't know."

He sounded so much like her tiny, affection-hungry little boy that Catherine had to take a moment to look up at the ceiling until the new wave of tears that were threatening to fall retreated. Dan had always been upset when he didn't know an answer, always saw any ignorance as a deadly flaw. He was, like his father, frightened of the unknown, and lacked the social skills to navigate it, despite all she had tried to do to help him over the years. Dan was just a bit awkward about life. It was part of his charm, that he was slightly apart from most people, observing and critiquing, even when he said nothing at all. She knew that she viewed him through the rose-tinted glasses of parental love but she was very sure that there was nothing blurred about her assessment of her son's flaws and the way they were interpreted by others as strengths. But right now he was her little boy, and he was hurting so much.

"Alright, she said, taking a deep breath. "Does this fear feel more or less terrifying than having nude photos of you and Jones published in a magazine that was read by almost everyone who knew you? Or being outed before you were ready? Or seeing him bruised and bleeding and being resuscitated?"

Dan was quiet on the other end of the line and she could hear his mind trying to assign his feelings a number.

"... 'bout the same," he whispered hoarsely and Catherine let one more insistent tear slide down the side of her face to be lost in the creases of her neck. She understood the concept of depression but she knew she would probably never really understand the reality of the fear and pain Dan's brain put him through.

"About the same. Alright. Daniel Ashcroft, I need to tell you right now that I love you and I believe in you. You will figure this out. You love him and he loves you and you will find a way to show it. Sometimes two people are just meant to be together, and you will be alright."

"Thanks mum," Dan muttered, and Catherine could hear the tears in his voice. "Shit (sorry) Jones is coming."

"So?"

"It's just, I'm sort of... I thought- hang on a second?... He wants to talk to you."

Dan's voice faded out and, after a few moments of crackling, she heard the clack of Jones' bracelet against the phone.

"Hey, Cathy, how are you?" Jones grinned down the line and Catherine had to smile in return at his optimism.

"I'm well, Jones. I'm looking forward to Christmas."

"Yeah, me too," he told her hurriedly. "It's going to be genius."

"And how are you feeling?" she asked even though she could practically feel the nervous jittering of his body and smell the caffeine on his skin.

"I'm fine," he said too quickly.

"... Oh?"

"Yeah, really. I'm fine."

Catherine paused for a moment. She had learned to read Jones' voice during their first phone conversation, over five years ago now, and he was an even worse liar than Dan, but she didn't want to push him too hard.

"And how's you're leg, dear?"

"It's fine..." he repeated, but the hitch in his voice gave him away. "Nah, it's a bit shit, actually. Sorry."

"You don't need to apologise, Jones, love," she told him. "We're your family. We want to know how you are. How you're really feeling. So that we can help you."

"Thanks, Mrs Ashcroft. Cathy. Thank you."

"You're welcome, dear. Now, could I ask you a bit of a favour?"

"Sure. Anything."

She felt a moment of indecision about her plan but knew that even when they both found out Daniel and Jones wouldn't be angry. Neither was truly capable of holding a grudge and the urge to help in some way was too strong.

"Daniel has been doing a lot of writing lately and he's torn between wanting to keep it hidden from the world and wanting someone's honest opinion. I offered to read it but he was too embarrassed. But I think he'd listen to you. And I think he'd respect your opinion. Would you do it?"

"But," Jones sounded a bit shocked and she heard the clack of his metal cane and knew he was moving down the road a little, so Dan couldn't hear. "I can't just go up to him and ask to read his journal! That's well rude."

"Oh no no, it wouldn't be anything like that. Just, if he asks, would you do it? Would you look at his notepads and give him a bit more confidence in his abilities? He's very insecure about it."

"... Sure, Cathy. I will."

"Thank you."

"But hey, I better duck off and pick up our fish and chips," Jones exclaimed, and she could hear how hard he was trying to be cheerful. "I ordered them ages ago, they're probably really grumpy with me. Shall I pass you back to Dan?"

"Please. But, Jones?"

"Hmm?"

"I love you, dear. And I am so proud of you. You're doing an excellent job. With everything. Well done."

"Thanks, Cathy. Love you too."

There was the muffled sound of Jones putting the phone against his chest as he walked back to Dan and handed over the mobile before Dan's voice, quiet but suddenly excited filled her ear again.

"Mum? Mum are you still there?"

"Yes, of course," she replied. "What on earth is wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," he told her and Catherine could hear the enthusiasm in his voice and it made her want to hug him so much. "I just need to ask your advice. I think I've found the perfect Christmas gift for Jones."


	39. Chapter 39

Ned looked around the restaurant nervously, trying to locate his group. He was late because he'd managed to lock himself out of his flat and had had to go back to Rufus's to get his spare key and he didn't like turning up to places on his own and late. It made him well nervous because, like, what if he couldn't find his friends or had the address wrong and everyone looked at him and thought he was uncool? That would be really, really shit.

He opened his phone, to check the time and pretend to read some texts so he didn't look like a loner but saw a hand start waving and let out a relieved breath when he recognised Rufus at the far end of the room.

Ned was wearing his real glasses tonight, going for the genuine intellectual look, but he wasn't sure that it was really working for him. He was a bit concerned that he looked like a computer programmer or some nerd shit and he so totally wasn't one of those, except that now that he and Rufus had their business up and running, he kind of was. Mostly he was just wearing them so that he didn't have to squint so much.

As he approached the table he gave a wave and tried to look chill rather than slightly overwhelmed at how much his life had changed in the last twelve months. This time last year he'd been at the SugarApe Christmas party, which had been a right banger with podium dancers and jelly shots and everything and at one point Dan had yelled at him that the world was:_ "a leviathan beached on the desert coast of the crude and illiterate New Age" _and that once ignorance had been a: _"delicate, exotic fucking fruit and now it was a fermented pile of rotting slush_" and that _"Oscar Wilde must be weeping in his fucking grave_". Then he'd vomited on Ned's tie and fallen asleep in the corner of the room. It'd been a killer night. Ned had recorded Dan's words and memorized them, even though he hadn't really understood most of what Dan had said. That was how you knew it was proper preach-talk, yeah? When you couldn't understand it but it just sounded totally deviant. They should have all guessed it back then, that Dan wasn't interested in conforming to the sexuality framework imposed by 'The System'. No matter what happened, Dan was still the coolest, and Ned wished he could have been with them tonight.

This year was well different. Last year he'd been partying, this year he was at a Christmas Eve eve dinner and being asked what wine he'd like to start with like a proper adult and it was all making him sweat a bit, which definitely was not a hot look. Even if it was happening because he was feeling hot.

They might not have Dan but they had Dan's sister at least, and she was well righteous. Pingu was one lucky fuck to be tapping her. She had organised this dinner and all. Toby had suggested it but Claire had been the one to actually book the table and make sure they all turned up on the right day and all that. Toby was one lucky fuck as well, cohabiting with Sasha. Everyone seemed to be getting some except him.

He sat down opposite Sasha and she gave him a quick smile, the sort that you'd probably miss if you blinked at the wrong moment, and he smiled back at her so that she wouldn't hate him. Sasha knew things about him, about everyone who'd worked at SugarApe. Things that everyone now wanted to forget. It was almost 2004 and he wanted to make a fresh start, he didn't want to accidentally piss off Sasha and discover that everyone knew about the time he swallowed a live goldfish just to win five pounds. He didn't think she would tell people that, but on the other hand, Sasha was an intelligent woman and Ned did not know quite how the brains of intelligent women worked. And Sasha was just a bit scary in general.

She was talking to Claire about something and he tried not to listen in because women like Claire and Sasha were big on manners and had been lecturing him and Rufus and Toby regularly about how one was supposed to behave toward women to earn their respect. But he also really wanted to find out what they were saying. Pingu was right next to Claire but he was looking at his menu and not paying even the slightest to what they were saying. That was probably why he never got given an ear bashing from the girls for acting like a twat when they all got together at the pub. Pingu just got Claire climbing all over him and kissing him like she wanted to suck out his soul after she'd had a beer or two, calling him Harry like he was the fucking prince or something.

Ned leaned forward, pretending to be reading his own menu, totally stealth, and finally got to hear what Claire and Sasha were talking about.

"... I'm sure Jones will be able to get a job back in London whenever he's ready," Sasha was saying, her voice all soft and reassuring in a way he hadn't really heard before. "He's talented, experienced. He has a unique sound from what I've read about him. He could probably just turn up to his old club and get a residency."

Claire sighed and Ned tried not to look at the way her boobs moved when she did, wobbling like thick custard. Her top was really nice, with a deep scoop-neck and a lace trim and Ned tried not to stare because it was wrong to perv on a mate's girlfriend and he and Pingu were definitely mates now after Pingu walked him and Rufus through all the legal stuff about setting up their own internet business and all. But Claire was just such a goddess it was hard not to be hypnotised by her amazing funbags.

"It's not Jones I'm worried about really," Claire told Sasha, twisting her napkin around in her hands until Pingu, without even looking up from his menu, put his hand on her wrist and instantly calmed her down.

Who would have known Pingu was such a smooth mover! And he moved his hand over hers like he was living a bloody romance novel (not that he would admit to reading romance novels, they'd been left behind in his flat by the last tenant and he totally kept them out on the bookcase ironically and not because they were a damn good read).

"No? I thought Harry said he was still having a lot of trouble with his leg and his pain management. He got an email from them the other day didn't he?"

Now this was interesting. Pingu seemed to know everybody and he was even swapping emails with DJ Jones! Ned thought a lot about DJ Jones and had been listening to a whole lot of happy hardcore and techno and trance and as much European electronica that he could. He really hoped that Jones would come back to DJ in London one day so that he could talk to him again and show off how much he now knew about Jones' genre.

He had a bit of a man-crush on DJ Jones, a big crush actually, but Jones had told him, that night when they'd met, that he didn't have to be concerned with the whole gender and sexuality thing, so he didn't feel too embarrassed about it. But the idea that his favourite DJ (even though he'd only seen him once) was still in pain after all the shit Jonatton had pulled on him made Ned feel really mad, like punch a tramp in the face type mad.

He was about to tell Claire as much when a waiter appeared to take their order. Ned fumbled with the menu, he hadn't actually looked at it, and ordered the pasta of the day from the specials board. He wouldn't have seen it if he hadn't been wearing his glasses and Ned took that a sign that he should definitely wear them all the time from now on. He felt like he'd been missing out on the specials board of life and that he needed to put things in action to rectify that. Wearing his specs was a good start, like a symbol of the man he was going to be in 2004, and if he didn't bump into shit all the time and trip over small bikes and dogs every day he might even be able to get himself a girlfriend next year, or a boyfriend. DJ Jones had opened up a whole new world to him and he was determined to at least check it out a bit more. He could kiss guys and not worry about being called a Stray and if anyone went all homophobic on him he could totally call them out on it, 'cos they were ones living in Wrongsville and not him.

Rufus ordered something off the specials board too and suggested that they could share if they wanted, you know, as just friends, and Ned said that that was cool. They could share pasta as more than friends too... if Rufus was up for it. Rufus had really nice eyes. You know, they'd been friends for a couple of years but he'd never really noticed, until now.

"Ya know," said Rufus, once their food had arrived and he and Ned had each had a taste of what the other had ordered. "If Dan needs a job or money or something, there's that 'Voice of a Generation' competition. Twenty grand and a book deal for the winner. Dan's already the voice of a generation, right? So he'd win hands down. And he's got the look and all, living all reclusive by the sea and that. He could do that, right?"

"Rufus," Claire snapped. "Were you listening in on our conversation?"

"Um..." Rufus turned toward him, his face a look of panic so complete that his eyebrows had disappeared into his hair.

"It's well impolite to listen in on, like, private conversations," Ned nodded, trying to make his face look serious but worrying that it just made him look like he had a belly ache. "But possibly our - I mean, Rufus's - concern for Dan overrules that?"

He turned to Sasha who appeared to be hiding a smile behind her wine glass and Claire just huffed.

"I suppose that wouldn't be such a bad idea, thank you, Rufus."

Pingu gave Claire a kiss on the cheek but Rufus was so surprised that he wasn't being told off that he totally fell of his chair and actually hit the floor, like a swooning maiden or some fairytale gaff and Ned wondered whether he could get in a bit of sneaky mouth-to-mouth but Rufus was back in his chair after a moment, apologising for bumping the table and trying not to look in Claire's direction. He looked well cute when he blushed and Ned decided that when New Year's Eve rolled around he knew exactly who he was going to be kissing at midnight.

He and Rufus gave Claire the down low about the writing thing and everyone talked and ate and drank. Sasha commented on some graphics work Ned'd done that Toby had showed her and how she'd really liked it and Rufus and Pingu had even had a conversation about new tax laws whilst Claire and Toby discussed which tradesmen needed to be hired to fix up the front of the House of Jones, and by the end of the night, when they were all exchanging hugs and 'Merry Christmas's' and that, Ned just couldn't stop grinning. He reckoned he could really start to like adulthood. Then Rufus invited him back for a cup of tea and Ned thought he might actually break his cheekbone from smiling. 2004 was going to be his year, he could feel it.


	40. Chapter 40

_It wasn't that I hated myself, it was more that I didn't know who I was, I was not acquainted, had never been introduced to myself, and I hated that. I hated not knowing. The self-hatred came later of course. Too often I heard about this person, Daniel Ashcroft; a boy who was too needy, who tried hard but was never good enough to be considered truly intelligent; a young man who was too distant, too acerbic for his own good, too pompous for anyone's good; an old man too broken and weak to be considered lovable, who couldn't solve his problems and so punished himself by making them worse instead. I learned about this man from the words of others, and from the way they reacted to him, and I hated him, and that was how I learned to hate myself._

_There was another man though. We were introduced through a friend, and I'm not sure if he has a name. He doesn't really need one. He belongs to Jones, you see, and that is how we were introduced. That man knew how to care for another human being, how to be vulnerable without it seeming like a weakness worthy of only snide distaste. That man knew how to be strong and brave and to protect and build up another person. That man tried to be good._

_It has been a painful journey but I think I am beginning to learn how to be that man all of the time, not only in the presence of Jones and no one else. It has been a strange journey as well as a painful one and it is hard to describe it without resorting to tired cliches that lost their meanings books ago. I expected to find demons, and there were more than a few of those, all gnashing teeth and ripping claws like Jabberwocky spawn but terrifyingly real, but I found more allies than I was expecting too. _

_The pain did not make us stronger. That is one cliche I feel no pull to use, that the trial made us better, or was necessary. I have no desire to thank the people who tried, and nearly succeeded, in destroying us. They were barely punished and we will live with the scars and the pain and the shadows on our lives while they can move on and forget. The fact that I have found something like peace is not because of the tribulations I went through before. I have not gained through pain. To believe those lies would be to give the demons too much power over us. The thing that is like peace, or contentment, or which could just be growing up, has come about through Jones. _

_The press of his hand against my chest, the rub of his forehead against my chin, the breath I have been privileged enough to share with him as we have lived and laughed and cried and gasped and talked together - all of these things are what have saved me and given me the something that I have now. And I never believed in soul mates and I scowled at the words and thought they were fickle and romantic, and they are, but I do not possess any other words for what Jones is to me. I was a mostly complete person before I met him, he did not complete me, but I was a person who I largely did not know, and who, when I did know, I did not like. I was a jumble of pieces and he put me together in a more stable configuration. Jones made me something more and different from what I thought I was doomed to be._

_And I like to think, when I attempt to be objective, and before I slide toward pretentiousness, that I have given something more to Jones too. He isn't a saint or an angel who swooped into my life, he is as flawed as any other human being, almost. I think, sometimes, that if I had not been walking by on the night we met and seen him crying he would have eventually picked himself up and gone back into that house and done what he needed to do. He might even have been stronger if I hadn't sat down beside him. But I worry that he might not ever have known that someone wanted to help him, for no other reason than that he was a child who needed to be helped. I worry that he might never have seen that he was worthy of being loved. Because that is the lesson he has taught me..._

Jones let out a shuddering breath, closing the notebook and pressing it tight to his chest as the sharp wind from the ocean made his cheeks sting where the tears had left them wet and cold. Dan had asked him, two days ago, if Jones would read his notebook, just for feedback and to make sure Dan wasn't going insane, and Jones had agreed, possibly too quickly. Dan's eyes had narrowed but Jones had leaned forward to kiss Dan's cheek, which had surprised the other man enough that he forgot to ask any questions.

He had taken the notebook down to the beach to read, so that he didn't have to worry about Dan seeing just how long it took him, and Dan hadn't asked about it, or mentioned the book at all, since. He was done now. He'd spent the last two days almost entirely at the beach, returning for meals and to sleep, while he read the notebook from cover to cover, and he was worried that Dan thought Jones was avoiding him.

He kind of had been, actually. Avoiding Dan. But he didn't really know why. Dan was being so patient, it was almost like he was being too good, and Jones wasn't sure that he deserved someone who was willing to be so loving and forgiving and accommodating. To know that Dan still felt so badly about himself, to know that through all the years they had known one another Dan had always hated himself, judged himself so harshly, but that he considered Jones to be one thing in his world that made sense, that redeemed him...

Tomorrow was Christmas day and Jones had been lying awake at night, crocheting to pass the time and trying to figure out what he could give to Dan to show him that he loved him. He'd made hats and mittens for everyone, three large blankets - one for Claire and Harry, one for Cathy and Roger, and one for Dan and him to keep - as well as woolen ornaments and doilies and coasters. He'd gone a bit overboard actually but it was either that or gluing sea shells to stuff and Jones didn't want to go down that path. That path led to serious crazy and he did not want to wake up one morning and discover that he'd hot glue gunned cockle shells to Dan's face or something. So he'd stuck to wool, but no matter what he created, or how many patterns he came up with, none of it had seemed right for Dan. And then Dan had handed over his notebook, and Jones understood that it was the Dan equivalent of handing over his still-beating heart, and now Jones really didn't know what to do, except cry. He was doing pretty well at that.

There was the new track he'd been working on, but he wasn't sure if it was ready, or how you went about giving someone your music for Christmas. And he didn't know if Dan would like it. Then again, Dan liked 'The Prodigy' but had a soft spot for 'B*witched' so it was hard to tell what he genuinely wouldn't like, other than Nathan Barley rapping.

Jones pulled out his iPod and settled his headphones over his ears, listening back to the music he'd spent the last few weeks building. It was darker than his older stuff, more mature, 160 BPM rather than his usual 200, but he liked it a lot. Jones wasn't often great with words but he used his noise to tell stories, getting people to lose themselves in rhythm and bass that at some, deep level they understood even if they didn't get that they were dancing to the sound of a London sunrise playing across Dan Ashcroft's sleeping face through dirty windows the morning after an all night session of sex, coffee and mixing at his decks. If he heard a song that sparked a memory or worked with the narrative he sampled it but mostly Jones preferred sounds that people took for granted but that made up the music of their every day lives.

This new track was made up their lives at the shack at Hornsea, and it was deep and melancholic and sometimes it even frightened Jones. He wanted to give it to Dan, his version of a notebook, but there was still something missing from it. There was healing and anger and tears and frustration and pain and the sound of the waves and gulls shrieking and Dan's laugh, slowed down and played through the whole thing at low pitch so you couldn't pick it out but you could feel it, if you knew where to search. He was quite proud of it really, like he hoped Dan was of his writings, which were amazing, even if they broke his heart, but there was still one element lacking.

Jones flicked back through the book, searching for the sentence that had made his chest achy and his tears fall so fast he could barely read the words.

_...The day he kissed me, that was the day I realised that there was something I would always keep living for. I'd never kissed lips like his. They were warm and soft but not wet or overbearing. Jones' lips, like everything else about him, were giving. And in that moment I realised that I wanted to give everything to him, and that I wanted to kiss him and hold him and feel his body and know every inch of him and spend the rest of my life being for him what he was for me in that moment: open and warm and soft. He is a gift, was and will always be the only gift I shall ever want or need or crave and it shall be enough if I am allowed to simply touch him each day, whether it is the brush of my finger against his, or a kiss on his cheek as we go to sleep, or the feel of our bodies united and connected until I lose myself in him and finally feel something like freedom... and if I cannot have that, then I shall relive that kiss (and all the other since) but especially that first when I finally saw the point in slow dancing in a kitchen, in having a song, in caring about someone enough that I didn't care how I looked, in David Bowie, and coincidence, and fate, and love and that maybe I existed for a reason._

_And that was the day he kissed me, the day I realised I was a romantic, old fool. Still a romantic, old fool, but that if Jones was there to kiss me I would be a fool and not mind at all..._

Jones looked up at the sea. It was getting dark and the wind was picking up so he struggled to his feet and limped up the path toward the house, the tears dried and gone, though his eyes and nose were still red and swollen from the cold and the salt spray. He knew what was missing now and the thought of how simple and obvious it was made him smile, a smile that grew wider when Dan appeared at the door wearing an apron and oven mitts, announcing that dinner was ready and did they want to open a bottle of wine to celebrate the fact that none of it was burnt. Jones nodded and stretched up to kiss Dan on his surprised mouth. Dinner first, he decided, then he had some time to make up for.


	41. Chapter 41

**Warning: This is a grown-up chapter for grown-ups. It contains sexy times. That is all.**

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><p>"Dan, can you come here, please?"<p>

Jones watched as Dan stepped around the door, his expression closed and confused until he saw his notebook lying square on the bed next to where Jones was sitting.

"So, you...?" he said, his voice gravelly from the cigarette he'd had a few minutes before and the words fading from his mouth like smoke.

"Yeah."

Dan nodded but didn't come any further into the room and Jones didn't blame him. In giving Jones his notebook Dan had bared his soul and it was a frightening thing for anyone to do. Dan looked as if he were preparing to face a firing squad rather than the man he'd spent over two hundred pages writing about. Jones was going to have to make the first move.

He pulled himself to his feet, his crutch sliding away to clatter to the floor, the sound of it like a snare drum as it bounced on the wood, calling them both to action, and Dan took two stilted steps into the room. As much as he'd always hated the title of preacher, there was something about Dan's broad, sloping shoulders and wild curls - so much longer now - with the bright light shining behind him, that was so very prophet-like. And with Dan's words still buzzing in his head Jones took his own two steps forward like an initiate approaching for a blessing.

Dan put out his hand, cupping Jones' elbow to hold him steady, and Jones smiled. It was such a simple gesture, an act of care that might have gone unnoticed if Dan were anyone else, but Jones had been aware of every gentle touch, every hand hold, every checking look, and knew that from Dan these actions were something amazing and that a year ago he would not have been able to even attempt half of them in public the way he did now. He'd noticed too all of the times Dan had stopped himself from touching or holding, sensing Jones' reluctance and respecting his space. He'd filed each of those acts of love as well, they were as important as the touches to Jones.

He could see the breath moving in and out of Dan's lungs, his chest heaving unevenly and causing vibrations in the air like a dust cap on a pounding speaker and Jones wanted to press himself against that chest, to feel Dan's music. And so he decided he would.

His own fingers were shaking as he began to pull the zip of his jacket down and pushed it off his shoulders, letting it fall to the ground with a thud which, in the quiet of the shack, made Dan jump. He pulled at his top next, dragging it up and over his head, careful around his shoulder which still twinged and pulled annoyingly whenever he did anything that involved moving his arm higher than his heart. His skin immediately prickled with goosebumps in the cold and the shiver that went through him was on the edge of violent as Dan stepped forward and ran a large, warm hand up Jones' chest and neck to the side of his face, his thumb caressing Jones' cheek while his long fingers tangled themselves in Jones' newly dyed blue and black hair.

Jones felt his eyes flutter closed as the shivers continued to race up and down his spine, not allowing him to take enough breath, and he raised his hands to Dan's chest, tugging at the buttons to stop his body from seizing up completely.

"I didn't mean for it to make you cry," Dan said, his voice much closer than Jones had been expecting, whispering over the uneven skin of his shoulder.

"I'm not-"

Jones let out a faltering gasp, his breath catching as he felt the tear trail down his cheek to stick in the stubble around his jaw. He focused on unbuttoning Dan's shirt, pulling each button roughly until they were all free and pushing at the fabric until he heard it slither to the floor. He was feeling frantic, like his decks were spinning too fast and he couldn't stop them without putting his hands on the vinyl and burning his fingers. But Dan brought his other hand up to rest on Jones' chest, above his heart, and in that beat the agitation melted away.

He stepped closer as Dan's palm slid upwards to caress his shoulder and bicep and the next gasp was more like a keen as he felt Dan's lips press - chapped and dry but not rough - kisses against the whirl of scars there. He hated those scars most of all because they were the hardest to hide without him chucking all his old clothes and buying new ones and because they pulled in the wrong direction when he moved and thrummed angrily whenever he tried to stretch, like steel guitar strings that had been over-tuned and were starting to unravel. But Dan was kissing them, delicately, lovingly, like they were something to be worshipped, and he could feel Dan's puffed breaths against his skin and he began to ache, not with pain for once but with the need to have Dan as close to him as possible.

He took another step and Dan's arms shifted to support him, circling around his waist until skin pressed against skin, Dan's chest hair rubbing against his nipple and Jones' jaw scraping along Dan's collar bone, sending judders through them both and tearing a moan from Dan's throat that vibrated through their bodies.

He snuck his hands down between them, sliding Dan's belt free as he trailed kisses along the coarse hair of Dan's neck. He'd worried so much that Dan couldn't find him attractive, even if he still loved him, and he'd been putting up a wall between them which he thought was to protect them both but now realised was the same sort of wall Dan had tried to build with alcohol and surliness in the weeks before he jumped from the Trashbat window. And walls were stupid because now, with almost nothing between them, he could feel Dan's emotion pouring out of him, like steam roiling over the rim of a mug, hot and intense yet so close to being insubstantial that anyone else might miss it - but that Jones knew like he knew the taste of the skin under his lips.

"I love you," he breathed against Dan's skin, inhaling the smell of iodine and salt from the ocean and cigarettes and tea leaves and coffee with milk and one sugar and the fainter traces of rose scented soap, and butter and spring onions and cheese from the baked potatoes he'd cooked for their dinner, all mixed in with the sharper scent of sweat, like a painting all in burgundies and maroons and taupes and deep golds but with sweeps of slate and livid and silver.

"I've always loved you," Dan mumbled in reply. "I love you, Jones. I'm sorry."

"No," Jones shook his head, pressing his teeth into the join of Dan's neck and shoulder just hard enough to feel the ripple of Dan's muscles as he shuddered. "You said I put you back together and... I reckon you did the same thing for me. I don't know what I was before you. You put me together out of scraps and all."

He flicked his thumb against the button on Dan's jeans and tugged at the flies until he felt the denim shift and drop away. He could feel the heavy throb of Dan's half-hard cock against his skin where his own jeans had slipped a bit and he pushed against it with his hip, loving the deep rumble of Dan's groan and the way the throb increased, the cotton of Dan's pants hot and tight where his erection was pushing at it.

He slid his hand around to grasp it, pressing and squeezing as Dan began to pant, their chests still pressed tight to one another and Dan's cheek rubbing hard against the side of his head.

"Jones," he gasped and Jones could feel the way Dan's muscles were spasming and relaxing as he gave himself over to Jones' care.

"It's alright," he whispered. "I'm here. Lie down?"

He'd thought long and hard about this, about how he wanted to be not just Dan's boyfriend or partner but his lover again as well. He needed it to make the music complete, and to help them both move forward, and to show Dan that he really did love him and want him and need him in the ways that Dan feared he no longer did. He'd wanted to wait until he felt whole and healed but had realised, as he read Dan's words, that that time might never come and that maybe he just needed to dive back in, like the last time, when he and Dan had taken the leap. Dan had been there for him that time, careful and loving and brave, and he now felt sure that Dan would do the same this time too.

"Are you sure?"

Jones looked up, moving back just enough to take in Dan's closed eyes, parted lips and quivering, exposed body.

"Yeah, I'm sure."

So often in their relationship Dan had been the one to take care of him. Dan had said that Jones was always giving but it was Dan who always knew _what_ to give. Jones wasn't great at taking care of himself and he was worse at taking care of other people and, as rubbish as Dan appeared to be at adulting in general, when it came to Jones he always seemed to know just what to do. But right now Jones wanted to show just how much he loved and needed Dan by repaying the favour and taking care of _him_.

He placed the notebook reverently on the bedside drawers and then took Dan's hand and led him gently to the bed, sliding his hands over Dan's skin, exploring and relearning until Dan was lying on his back in the centre of the bed, his chest heaving even more forcefully and his eyes shut tight. One long curl had fallen across Dan's face and Jones took a moment to really look at the man who was so achingly beautiful and who had saved his life in so many ways and yet still thought of himself as unworthy. Then he climbed onto the bed and pulled Dan's pants down, grinning at the way the older man's penis bobbed as it was freed, curving upwards toward his stomach.

He kissed up one thigh, pressing firm kisses to Dan's leg and enjoying the way he jolted and twitched in time with the short, breathy gasps that he couldn't seem to hold in. He pressed his nose to Dan's ballsack, nuzzling, before licking a thick stripe with his tongue all the way to the tip of Dan's cock. He hadn't done this in so long and was actually worried that he'd be out of practice, but going down on Dan was still the most natural thing in the world and Jones smiled before opening his mouth to suck on the head of Dan's penis, which caused Dan to let forth a whole new series of gasps and moans that in turn sent the blood rushing from Jones' brain to his groin.

He was tempted to get Dan off like this, to suck and lick and swallow until Dan came down his throat, but Jones knew that what they both needed tonight was the closeness that they found in sex: "_the feel of our bodies united and connected until I lose myself in him and finally feel something like freedom" _as Dan had written so perfectly.

That didn't mean that he couldn't reduce Dan to a helpless, whimpering pool of need first though and he brought up his weaker hand to stroke Dan's testicles as he supported himself on his good arm, working Dan until he was twitching and sobbing and clutching at the blankets beneath him.

Jones pulled off of Dan with a wet slurp and watched him slump bonelessly against the covers, his cock hard and swollen and glistening. He shuffled across the mattress and opened the bedside drawer to retrieve the lube before kissing his way back down Dan's body, starting at the old scar on Dan's shoulder and ending with a nip to one pale hip bone. He pushed Dan's knees up and Dan obliged, wriggling his arse into a better position and biting his lip when he heard the snap of the lube bottle being opened. Jones could barely recall a time when Dan had looked so ready and so eager to be fucked and he wanted to kick himself for holding out on his lover for so long.

He drizzled some lube over his fingers, rubbing it around until he had them well coated before edging himself up and pressing one gently to Dan's entrance, circling around the puckered skin until it was wet and had started to relax. Dan tilted his hips, pushing the tip of Jones' finger inside himself and both men gasped raggedly at the sensation. Dan was so tight and hot and Jones closed his eyes as he pushed in a little deeper, losing himself in the noises that Dan was making and the press of Dan's flesh against his digit.

He trickled a little more lube down over Dan's hole, hypnotised by the way his finger was disappearing into his lover's body, moving slowly in and out, but looked up when he heard a breathy laugh. Dan had one arm thrown across his eyes but his mouth was open and smiling and Jones felt his heart flutter to know that not only was Dan aroused, he was happy too.

He pushed in a little deeper and crooked his finger, years of practice helping him find Dan's prostate with ease. He remembered when he was nineteen and he had worried that his stubby fingers would never be able to find that magic spot but it had been surprisingly easy, closer and more obvious than he'd imagined, and he pressed against it now, rubbing circles and tapping rhythms until the smile slipped from Dan's face and he was slack jawed and moaning, his neck and chest covered in a sheen of sweat despite the chill in the air.

He slipped his finger free - despite Dan's moan of protest - and squeezed out more lube before carefully adding a second finger. Dan teased him from time to time about how much lubricant they went through but he had never complained about being raw or chafed or under prepared and Jones took pride in the fact that he was able to give Dan intense pleasure with minimal discomfort. He was happy to go through the embarrassment of regularly purchasing lube if it meant that he wasn't stressing about whether Dan was comfortable when they did this. And he liked it when Dan laughed, especially when Jones had several fingers deep inside him - it was like he could feel Dan's laughter from the inside.

He moved the two fingers in and out, letting Dan set the pace as he canted his hips against the bed, each breath accompanied by a faint 'Oh!' as Jones' fingers bumped his prostate. When he added a third finger Dan let out a whispered 'Yes!' and Jones felt his own erection throb, still trapped within his jeans.

"You ok to do this?" he asked and Dan nodded frantically against the pillow, his eyes still hidden but his skin flushed a deep, delicious pink.

Jones moved his fingers out as slowly as he could, loving the way Dan's body tried to follow them. He kept the tips of all three just inside Dan's entrance as he freed himself awkwardly from his jeans and pants, watching the intense emotions flit across Dan's face as Jones fingers jostled and jolted, barely inside of him and at the same time stretching him wide. When Jones was finally naked he thrust his fingers in and out a few times more, watching Dan's legs tremble as he tried to spread them wider. It was an image that he hadn't realised he'd missed, the way Dan let himself go so completely when they did this - the trust that Dan had in him to let him do this - and he felt the prickle of tears behind his eyes as he gazed down at the man he loved so fiercely.

He took a deep, steadying breath as he pulled his fingers completely free and lifted Dan's legs carefully over his until the head of his cock rested against Dan's stretched, glistening entrance. He dripped a little more lube over himself, grasping his shaft as he spread it around and lined himself up.

"I love you," he said and then began to push into Dan slowly, understanding Dan's guttural moan as the response that it was.

Entering Dan was always intense, an assault on all of his senses at once, and now, after so long apart, Jones worried that he wouldn't be able to last much longer. His leg was aching, the muscle of his thigh spasming in complaint against the physical activity, but Jones used it to distract himself a little from the hot, tight press of Dan's body around him. He was glad that they had waited, that he had learned to be a bit more comfortable with the man he was now, rather than trying to force himself back into intimacy straight out of hospital, but he had missed this.

He had missed the intense feeling of rightness that came with actually being inside Dan's body, the way it made him feel like he was remotely close to being near enough, part of, at one with, the man he worshipped and adored and worried about and needed more than caffeine and music combined. And from the way he was gasping for breath and pulling him down for a passionate, messy kiss, Dan had missed this too.

"Love you," Dan panted against his lips between kisses. "Love you, Jones. So much. Missed you." His fingers tightened in Jones' hair, his back arching in a sharp gasp as the tip of Jones' cock brushed against his prostate. "Love you!"

Jones just pressed their foreheads together as he began to thrust gently, enjoying the wet sound of his pelvis against Dan's arse as he rocked in to him with ever increasing speed.

He tried to balance on one arm so he could reach down to Dan's cock which was pressing against him and smearing a wet trail across his stomach but his other arm buckled and he fell, his chest hitting Dan's with enough force that he cried out, pain shooting through his sternum and up to his shoulder.

Dan reacted instantly, wrapping his arms around Jones in a hold that was firm but not too tight and rolling them both until Jones was lying on the bed with Dan above him. Jones opened his eyes in shock, trying to control both the pain in his chest and the intense pleasure of having Dan above him, riding him, shuddering around him. Dan's eyes were open too and they locked onto Jones', as wide as Jones had ever seen them as he too tried to deal with the intensity of their new position.

Dan's mouth was moving, his lips trembling as he tried to articulate what he was feeling, but he couldn't even seem manage a moan. He lifted himself and Jones looked down the length of his body and saw the base of his cock slide out of Dan, only to be enveloped again by the slick heat. Dan's legs, on either side of his, were vibrating and Jones felt as though he was near to being shaken apart. He closed his eyes as Dan began, with agonising slowness, to bounce above him, pushing himself up and down on Jones' cock, deeper than Jones felt they had even been before.

He could hear the wet shlapp as Dan worked his own cock and felt the drops of precome hit his belly, so hot they seemed to burn, but couldn't make his hands work to help him out. And then Dan began to laugh again, breathy and on the edge of exhaustion and so intensely happy that the tears were streaming down Jones' face before he could stop them. He smiled, unable to hold in his own joy, and felt the laughter bubble up from his belly only to come out as stuttered, gasping whimpers when he felt Dan's muscles tighten around him.

Dan's come hit his chest just as Jones' own orgasm rushed through him and his eyes shot open at the overwhelming waves of pleasure as Dan's body clenched around his cock, squeezing him, milking him, and holding him safe so that he couldn't drift away as the pleasure tried to knock him from his own body.

Dan fell forward onto his arms and lowered his face down until their cheeks were pressed together, their tears mingling as they shared breath.

"I love you," Dan murmured again. "Thank you."

Jones tried to speak but couldn't, so turned his head until he caught Dan's lips with his and kissed him until his lungs were bursting.

"Merry Christmas," he whispered, his eyes sliding shut heavily.

Jones was vaguely aware of Dan climbing off his lap, making funny little noises as Jones' spent penis slid free from his stretched hole, before throwing more blankets on to the bed and snuggling down to sleep with his chest pressed to Jones' arm and their legs carefully tangled.

And as rain began to fall, drumming a soothing rhythm upon the roof of the shack, Jones and Dan slept. Sticky, smiling, and content.


	42. Chapter 42

Claire knocked on the shack door, which felt strange considering it had been her holiday home for her entire childhood, but her mum had insisted that she knock. It was Dan and Jones' house now, not that they were answering. She rapped on the rough wood again and huffed into the cold silence. This was no way to be spending her Christmas morning and the basket in her arms was awkward and heavy, not to mention the fact that her feet were so cold she couldn't even feel them anymore. And it was starting to rain again. She made the decision to step inside, just to leave the present by the door so that she could get back somewhere warm. That way Dan would find it when he was ready to get out of bed and stop being a lazy sod and she could get back to the B&B and Harry, who she hadn't even had a chance to exchange gifts with yet.

The door wasn't locked so she opened it quietly and tip toed inside, placing the basket on the floor as gently as she could before standing up and looking around the small space. When they'd moved the two men into the shack it had been a dusty, grey place but now it was anything but. Every window and doorway (every available surface in fact) had been strung with brightly coloured decorations made out of... wool! Claire vaguely remembered her mother knitting or something when they came down here on holidays but nothing like this. There was a crocheted wreathe, crocheted berries, crocheted candles, angels, reindeer and a slightly lumpy Father Christmas, all made out of wool. Her mother had made blankets, scarves and occasionally hats but these woolen creations had a definite Jones feel to them.

There was a Christmas tree in the corner as well but on closer inspection Claire saw that it was actually a collection of green, leather bound books from their dad's study, decorated with more woolen ornaments and an assortment of sea shells. It was strange and a bit silly but charmingly and artistically done and so utterly Dan and Jones.

She tip toed a little further in to the room eyeing off the lumpy parcels under the 'tree' that were labeled and waiting for when the whole family would arrive later in the morning but stopped when she heard a noise coming from the bedroom. It was a happy noise, low and rumbling and the sort of noise that was just begging to be investigated. Oh no, Claire thought, turning on her heel and trying to walk quickly but silently back to the front door. She was not going to fall for that again. Nothing good could possibly come from spying on her brother, especially when this time she _knew_ he was in there with Jones. She definitely did not need to know exactly how they were wishing each other a Merry Christmas.

She was glad that Dan and Jones were happy and loved up and all, they deserved a bit of happiness with everything that they'd been through, but she did not need to hear this. Not when she could tell that it was Dan moaning and... yes... whining! There were hot, puffing, little gasps that were unmistakably Jones as well and Claire tried to get back to the door without treading on any creaking floorboards or breathing too loudly even though they probably wouldn't hear her anyway, not above Dan's litany of: 'Yes! Yes, yes, yes. Fuck, fuck, harder, fuck, oh god, Jones! Fuck! Oh! So close!' and Jones' sharp pants and breathy sighs and -

Claire's eyes widened so quickly they started to prickle and dry out before she realised that she needed to blink, but unfreezing even her eyelids was almost impossible. Had Dan just said the words, 'So close'? She could not be here for _That_! But as she reached out her hand toward the door handle, ready to fling it open and exit the shack at a flying leap, she remembered the basket sitting in front of the door. She'd need to move it before she could escape and she probably could't do it both quickly _and_ quietly. Claire bit her lip and tried not to panic. She really, _really_ needed to get out of here.

In the bedroom Dan's words had dissolved into loud moans and Jones almost sounded like he was singing and Claire rammed her fingers into her ears even though she knew it was too late because despite her fingers muffling the sound she heard the strangled cry that was either Dan orgasming or a wolfhound pup being accidentally stepped on. It seemed to go on far too long in Claire's opinion and she couldn't help the frown of confusion that creased her face when, after Dan's cry finally petered out, the sex noises kept going. What were they even doing?

Jones was the one making most of the noise now, though she could hear Dan egging him on, saying: 'Yes, Jones. God, I love you. Yes, yes, come on, Jones. Come for me. Love you. Love you,' and the disturbing sound of skin hitting skin (which was very audible even with her ears blocked and her eyes closed).

Then Jones let out a particularly violent gasp and Claire hated that she could imagine what he might look like in that moment, his body covered by Dan's larger one, panting as he came after being thoroughly shagged by her brother. The fact that it was actually a really sexy image was disturbing, but not as disturbing as the nagging thought in her mind that the sounds she had heard didn't really match up with the image of Jones getting fucked into the bed. Not when Dan had begged for Jones to go harder, and that Dan had come first, and then encouraged Jones to continue, and -

Claire shook her head vigorously, her teeth clenched as she tried to clear those thoughts from her brain. There were some things a girl was just not supposed to know about her brother and the fact that he most likely bottomed for his boyfriend was one of those facts.

She reached down and grabbed the basket, yanking at the door, but the rain had picked up in the few minutes she'd been in the shack, as had the gale, and she barely had the door open before she was hit by a gust of wind that drenched her in a mix of rain water and sea spray before it slammed the door shut in her face. Claire couldn't stop the yelp that burst forth as the heavy wood flew shut and she blinked the water from her face in surprise before she realised that the quiet of the little house had quite dramatically increased.

"Is that you, Claire?"

She turned slowly, her eyes like saucers beneath her wet lashes, but Dan and Jones were still in the bedroom and she breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

"Yeah," she called out. "I'm just dropping off... that thing you wanted. I'll just leave it here. I'm heading back to the B&B now so I'll... see you later," she rushed. "Merry Christmas."

She put the basket down and then forced her way back out into the icy rain, not caring how wet she ended up on the short walk to the car, or how cold she was when she arrived back at the Bed and Breakfast. The rain was the closest she was ever going to get to rinsing out her brain, and by the time she emerged from the long, steamy shower (that Harry had joined her for) she was almost feeling herself again. Almost.


	43. Chapter 43

"A kitten!"

Dan winced. Jones' voice was so high pitched that Dan worried, for a second, that Jones had finally produced a noise that his ears couldn't endure. He tried not to laugh directly in his lover's face but it was a struggle when he was squirming and grinning like, well, like a kid at Christmas. He had seen Jones excited over a great many things in their time together but his face as he held up the tiny, grey, fluffy ball of feline was on a par with the face he'd made when he actually got the gig at H8NUPX. He was practically bouncing on the couch and his smile was so broad Dan worried that he might hurt himself.

"Do you like her?" he asked quietly, hoping that if he used a low, calm voice he'd be able to keep Jones from becoming too hyperactive.

It'd worked in the past and the last thing they needed was for Jones to get too excited and scare his brand new kitten. And then crash out before Christmas day was even half done. Once upon a time Jones' body could run on it's nerves, fueled by excitement, caffeine, fear and Jones' own brand of joie de vivre. But these days he had a tendency to crash without much warning, and he needed more sleep than he liked. He still struggled with the insomnia at times, if anything it was worse than before, but he wasn't able to simply stay up at his decks for days straight. His brain still refused to switch off but now his body was fighting back. Jones called it getting old but Dan liked to think of it more as settling down - or sanity.

Watching Jones making doting, doe eyed faces at his Christmas kitten Dan didn't think anyone could accuse Jones of getting old. The fact that he was also sporting a blossoming, purple love bite on his neck from that morning's activities, or his Christmas Present, as Jones had called it, only added to the general impression that Jones was barely beyond his teens.

Dan wasn't great with kids but he knew a whole lot about how to stop Jones from flipping from over-excited to all-out panic attack.

"What are you going to name her?" he asked, kneeling by the sofa so that he could look up into Jones' face.

"Dunno," Jones said dreamily, staring into the kitten's eyes before blinking rapidly and looking down at Dan. "Is this real?"

"What?" Dan blinked back. "Of course it's real. What d'you mean?"

"Have you gone soft?" Jones asked in a deeper voice, fighting to make his expressive features settle into a serious expression that just made Dan want to kiss him, again.

"No."

"But, Dan," Jones urged. "A kitten. You hate cats. We argued about this for weeks, like, five years ago, I don't... Wait," Jones grinned, looking like a pixie up to no good. "Does this mean I win the argument?"

"Win what?" Dan asked, his own grin peaking through as he remembered what Jones was referring too.

"Like you don't know. _'We're not getting some stinking cat and that's final! It's not genius, it's bloody stupid, argument over!' _Don't play dumb now, Mr Ashcroft, you said no cat," Jones said with delight, back to bouncing in his seat. "You said argument over. Now suddenly we've got a kitten. So, I win! Genius!"

Dan just chuckled through his nose and let it slide. Five years ago neither of them would have been considered responsible enough to look after a pet. They could barely look after each other back then - they'd lived on sex, pot noodle, coffee and cigarettes. Which had been nice. Dan was the first to admit it had a slummy charm to it, but things had changed and now he felt that they were ready for a commitment of this magnitude. He told Jones as much but instead of a cheeky grin he watched the smile slide off Jones' face so fast he almost held out his hand to catch it.

"What's wrong?"

"This ain't..." Jones looked warily from the kitten now snuggled against his chest to Dan and back again and Dan felt a knot of anxiety form in the centre of his chest at the shadow that had fallen across the younger man's face.

"What?" he nudged gently.

"It's not like... a test is it?" Jones whispered. "Or training or nothing? Cos I like being your, like, lover and partner and shit, Dan, but..." Dan watched as Jones searched frantically in the air in front of him for the right words, his lips parted and his brow creased. "I... I like being _out_ and all. I love being with you, but... I don't want us to turn into one of those clean cut, respectable _'homosexual couples'_ that wear matching pink ties to dinner parties and have a cat in the house and dog out the back and..." Jones bit his lip and Dan could see how hard it was for him to say something that he worried would hurt Dan's feelings. His final words came out so softly, fragile as bath bubbles, that Dan had to lean in to hear. "I don't want to adopt someone's baby and play at happy families is all. I'm sorry."

Dan watched as two tears fell from Jones' eyes, racing their way toward his freshly shaved jaw, speeding up when Jones tucked his chin into his chest to avoid having to look at Dan, as if he might actually in trouble.

"Jones," Dan said quietly, reaching out to run his hand through the freshly washed mane of blue and black. "Jonesy, sweetheart, look at me."

He kept up the soft encouragement, speaking in a a near monotone so that Jones wouldn't get spooked or read too much into his tone, petting Jones like _he_ was the cat until Jones finally looked up, bottom lip caught in his teeth and eyes red and watery.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Dan told him. He said at least once a day and tried to make sure he never sounded exasperated or angry when he said it. He went through phases of saying sorry a lot as well, and knew how crushing it felt to be sighed at for apologising, how it always made him feel even worse and more unworthy. So he leaned forward and kissed Jones' forehead instead.

"Sorry," Jones uttered but Dan shook his head.

"Jones, look at me. This is important," Dan said, locking eyes with Jones before he continued. "I really, really don't like kids," he said slowly. "And I really, really don't want to be one of those socially acceptable two man couples who look more like business associates than boyfriends, or even friends. I don't ever want to wear a tie if I don't have to, let alone a matching one. I wouldn't mind, one day... making things... even more official, if we can, but... this is in no way a test of your suitability as a long term prospect, Jones. I made up my mind about you years ago. You're stuck with me, I'm afraid."

Watching the laughter burst out of Jones amidst his tears was one of the most bittersweet things Dan had seen, and it broke his heart whenever it happened, regardless of the reason, and this time his heart ached more than ever. Jones' face was a picture of relief and Dan wanted to make sure he was completely settled and at ease before he left him to start on the main event of making the Christmas lunch (which he probably would have started an hour ago if he hadn't been otherwise engaged).

"I bought you that kitten, well, adopted her, because I love to see you smile. I love to see you happy, and I know that whenever you see a cat you stop and pat it and it makes you smile and you bounce a bit when you walk for the rest of the day, just because you got to pat a cat... And because I knew you'd get a kick out of winning a five year old argument, you competitive little tart."

"Sore loser," Jones teased, laughing quietly and wiping at his eyes.

"And," Dan said, catching Jones' eyes again with his own and trying not to grin too foolishly. "She was living at the vet's, they had a sign up asking for someone to adopt her. She's only five months old but she's house trained, apparently. But no one wanted her."  
>Jones face crumbled again and he held the kitten close to his chest while his eyes stared, wide and glassy, at Dan.<p>

"But why?"

"Well," Dan said slowly, chewing his lip to stop himself from laughing too soon. "It turns out... she's stone deaf."

Jones' cackle was so loud that if the kitten could hear she would have been off through the house like a shot. Instead, as Jones threw his head back and laughed, tears still leaking from the corners of his eyes, the little ball of fur snuggled itself deeper into his arms. Dan laughed too, grinning at Jones and that he was finally allowed to share the secret. A kitten that Jones could love but that wouldn't be frightened of the music and noise he made had seemed too good to be true and he'd paid for the kitten within minutes of seeing the sign, despite his mother's voice, on the other end of the phone, telling him to weigh up the pros and cons of getting a pet before he committed to it. He knew that Jones would get a kick out of being a DJ with a deaf cat but more than that, he knew that for Jones, caring for and giving a home to the kitten that no one else wanted because it wasn't quite perfect, that would be even more important.

"Oh, she's beautiful," Jones whispered when he'd laughed himself out. "Thank you, Dan. You're the best."  
>"I know," he said with a smirk, and Jones snorted and rolled his eyes. "But now I have to try and cook that chicken and at least four different kinds of vegetable so that they're at least edible. So I'll leave you two to get acquainted shall I?"<p>

Jones nodded and angled his face forward for Dan to kiss, which he did, pressing and nibbling Jones' lips with his own until Jones was red cheeked and breathless.

"Your Christmas present was better than mine," he said a little sulkily, "I never know what to get you," but Dan just snorted and kissed along Jones' jaw to his neck, catching the flesh between his teeth and swirling his tongue over it before sucking hard enough to leave another, deep love bite and to cause Jones to gasp and squirm.

"Oh, I don't know," he growled into Jones' ear, enjoying the way Jones was so quickly reduced to a shaking, needy mess, and by the fact that Dan was allowed to touch him like this at all.

They kissed lazily for a few more minutes before Dan pulled away and hauled himself to his feet, wishing that he'd never learned to cook so that he didn't have to spend the next hour or so in the kitchen, but when he reached the doorway from the sitting room to the kitchen he looked back and smiled.

The room was ridiculously overdecorated in a cacophony of brightly coloured wool and Jones was lying in the middle of it - odd socks, black jeans, leg brace, and some sort of poncho that he'd made himself which looked like it'd been vomited up by a rainbow - on his back on the creaking sofa, cuddling his new kitten and humming, seemingly in time to the rhythm of the rain on the roof. Dan couldn't imagine a more perfect scene.

And then Jones looked up at him and gave him a smile so full of affection that Dan felt himself actually begin to blush.

" 'm gonna call her Stardust," he said matter-of-factly and Dan stared at the tiny, grey cat and nodded.

"Wonderful," he murmured then turned back toward the kitchen and the task of preparing his first Christmas lunch.


	44. Chapter 44

Christmas was done. Well technically there were still three hours left of the day but Dan considered the holiday finished for another year, which was a relief. He was also quite proud. The chicken had been more than edible, the vegetables had tasted like vegetables but in a good way, and the gravy had turned it all from a simple meal to a delicious Christmas feast. And Harry had turned up with a homemade plum pudding from his mother and had made the most delicious brandy custard Dan had ever tasted and the day had been declared a thorough success.

Jones had been so full of nervous excitement he'd barely sat still, hugging anyone he could get his arms around and not letting go of his kitten except to use the loo. He'd put together a simple mix to play for the day as well and when Claire walked into the house and heard it she'd been downright confused until Jones hobbled over, gave her a tight squeeze and told her,

"It's ambient, Claire. I do know about other kinds of music, I just happen to like the noisy sort. Merry Christmas!"

Jones' cuddly zeal had been catching and Dan found himself hugging anyone who came into the kitchen, which had made his mother laugh, even as she'd teared up, and made Claire feel even more uncomfortable. Harry didn't seem to care, though he was getting the matey, one arm around the shoulders type hugs and Claire was getting the 'squeeze your little sister until she squeaks and has to readjust her bra' type of hugs but Dan was too high off Jones' Christmas cheer to stop.

When Jones' eyes began to droop during dessert Dan had ordered him to the sofa and his mum had gone too, so that Jones wouldn't feel like he'd been sent from the table like a naughty child, though Dan had suspected an ulterior motive. When he brought her uneaten dessert and a cup of tea out a few minutes later and saw that Jones had fallen asleep with his head in her lap, and the look of utter delight and affection on his mum's face, he couldn't help but smile back.

Stardust had climbed up too and so Dan left his mother, sipping her tea and blinking back happy tears as she alternated between patting the kitten and the man she had already started referring to as her son-in-law.

And when Jones woke up again he'd made them all listen to his music which, Dan had to admit, he'd been nervous about. But it was beautiful. His dad had loved it, which had been a shock, but they'd all been informed that Jones' theory on fragmented sound and musical chaos was the basis of his latest research project and Jones had beamed, his cheeks red from sleep and the small amount of brandy he'd had and sheer joy at being with a family at Christmas.

Dan had listened hard to the music as well because he knew it was something Jones had been working hard on. Jones hadn't really ever used a computer in the creation of his music before. He had used one to record finished pieces and convert them to mp3s but this new piece was different. Dan wanted to call it a composition but he wasn't sure whether Jones would be happy with that, though that was what it was. It was a seamless piece of music that seemed to sum up their lives at Hornsea completely but which also encompassed their lives leading up to their move to the shack as well. The beat was strong but there was something pensive about the music that softened it too and every now and then 'Rock'n'Roll Suicide' would fade in and out, like waves on the beach, though Jones' actual recordings of the waves were woven in as well. Jones had held his hand as the music played through and Dan knew that Jones had created this music for him, as a gift, and that letting other people hear it had been hard.

It was only a sample piece. Jones had no intention of forcing them to sit and listen to all thirty seven minutes of his creation but it was enough to show Dan's parents, and Claire and Harry, what Jones was capable of and Dan felt proud. Then his mum had started talking about crocheting while his dad started asking Harry about his new job and Dan had made a quiet exit.

And now he was out on the porch, wrapped in his coat and the new woolen hat, scarf and fingerless gloves Jones had made for him, smoking a cigarette beside Claire, who was dressed in almost identical woolen accessories.

"You did well today," she told him, looking out over the inky sea, and Dan nodded his thanks, staring out toward the low wall that had become Jones' favourite place to sit over the last several weeks.

"Thanks. You too."

"Me?" she scoffed. "I didn't do anything, Dan. How drunk are you?"

"I'm not," Dan growled back. "One glass of wine and the brandy in your boyfriend's custard aren't enough to even make me tipsy and you know it, so don't be bitchy. I was trying to give you a compliment."

Claire just looked up at him with her eyebrows raised disbelievingly and blew out her cigarette smoke in a thin stream from the corner of her mouth and Dan considered dropping the topic completely in the face of her obvious sarcasm. Except that he knew that even when Claire talked hard she was still just an overachieving teenager underneath it all. For some reason she had always believed that Dan was better loved than her, and more intelligent and successful as well. He couldn't fathom how she could come to that sort of conclusion but Claire was just a bit weird, so he took a deep breath and tried again.

"You've put up with people hugging you all day. You've put up with dad telling you what a catch Pingu is in as many ways as he can in a not particularly subtle attempt to tell you that you should marry him before he can get away." Claire huffed and Dan knew that she'd noticed it as well and that the very thought of it made her uncomfortable. "And," he continued. "You've put up with Jones being... extremely enthusiastic all day, which I know you aren't partial to. Not to mention mum treating him like her favourite child. You haven't yelled at anyone or thrown any breakable items at the wall or snuck off to the loo with a bottle of port, which is a huge improvement on our last family Christmas. So, well done."

Claire gave him another dark look but he could tell that she was pleased to be given any sort of compliment by her bother and she blew out her next plume of smoke in a self-satisfied sort of way. He was about to keep talking, to tell her that her hair was looking nice or something, but Claire, as usual, managed to spoil the moment he was trying to build.

"Why is he just so... hyper?"

Dan tried not to be offended because Claire wasn't good at delicate questions but he needed to defend Jones.

"He's not really," he said, flicking his cigarette butt out into the darkness, breathing in the thick scent of the wet sand and icy wind. "He is sometimes but today was more because he was nervous. Most Christmases it's just been him and me and we didn't really celebrate. Before that... he probably hasn't had a family Christmas since before his dad died - I haven't really asked because quite frankly I don't need to know if he doesn't want to tell me - but seriously, Claire, does Jones strike you as the sort of person who's used to being doted on or given presents? Besides," Dan turned to look at her, frowning at the defiant jut of her jaw in preparation for being told off. "He experiences life differently to you and me. Leave him alone."

"What d'you mean, different?" Claire pressed, completely failing to acknowledge Dan's order to drop her line of questioning.

"Just different," Dan sighed, taking a deep breath to clear his lungs and give himself time to think. "He... sees colours differently. And music and sound, he sees the colours in them too. And he feels it, music and rhythms and the way he describes it - like magic. Image seeing colours in the sound of raindrops or feeling the music of a misty day's light playing on the back of your hand. The _colour_ of the _sound_ of sand being swept through long grass... And he makes stories out of sound as well, that's what his music is! it's just... I don't know," he mumbled, his words petering out. "Just different."

The silence crept around them, like frost settling in the darkest hours before morning, but Dan didn't know what more to say. Claire finished her smoke and flicked the butt away in an exact imitation of his earlier action and Dan wondered how many of the mannerisms he noticed in his sister were actually things she had learned from him. With no excuse to be out in the cold Dan began to feel awkward about standing outside, but before he could make a move Claire started talking again.

"Speaking of noise... I accidentally overheard you this morning."

Dan tried to inhale and swallow at the same time but managed neither and began to cough violently in response to Claire's blunt statement.

"What?" he wheezed but Claire just shrugged and wrapped her arms more tightly around her waist.

"This morning, when I came to drop off that cat you gave Jones," she told him, staring resolutely out at the ocean. "I knocked but you two obviously didn't hear me and it was raining so I stepped inside and well, you two were..."

"Oh, God!"

"I tried to leave again," Claire told him, a little too loudly for his liking. "But the door slammed and that's when you realised I was there."

"But that didn't happen until after we..." Dan tried to yell at her and whisper so they weren't overheard at the same time and his voice came out as a hiss that just sounded terrified. Why did this keep happening?

"Yep," was all Claire said.

"So you heard..."

"All of it," she nodded. "Or most of it. The _important_ part anyway."

"Oh, God!" Dan repeated, running his fingers through his hair. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Dunno," Claire shrugged. "Because I don't like suffering alone?"

"Well, thanks," Dan huffed, loading his voice with as much sarcasm as he could muster.

"You're welcome," she told him tritely and Dan felt the old urge to wring her neck returning. "You certainly sounded like you were having fun."

Dan took a deep breath and counted back from ten, calming his anger so that he didn't just yell at her. If he yelled everyone would hear and want to know what they'd been fighting about. And he knew a better way to make Claire regret her decision to make him uncomfortable.

"We had a lovely time, thank you. Jones is very good at what he does."

Claire gave him a revolted look but Dan just smiled. We're both adults, his look told her. We should be able to talk about this sort of thing. Claire tried to smile back.

"It sounded like it. Does he always ram you in the arse or do you take turns?"

Dan let that statement hang in the air long enough for Claire to start fidgeting and regret that she'd said it before replying.

"We have done it the other way round," he said casually, glancing slyly at his sister who was starting to blush a deep red. across her cheeks. "But he prefers to be on top. And I prefer being on the bottom, so to speak. And he doesn't ram, that's a terrible phrase. Are you hanging out with Barley again?"

"No!" Claire shot back and Dan grinned quickly because she was properly flustered now. "But you two seem to go at it pretty hard. Do you ever take a break or have you just been shagging non-stop out here? I've been worrying about what you're going to do once this holiday is over and you haven't thought about the future one bit have you? You've been too busy letting him... do _that_ to you!"

Ah, Dan thought, Claire was worried. Well, that explained why she was so prickly. But he could do something to help her on that front at least.

"Claire," he said slowly, using the same voice that he used when talking Jones out of his panic. "I have fifty thousand of SugarApe's pounds in the bank. I'm going to be fine. And I'm not worrying about what I'm going to do when we leave here because I don't want to think about leaving here until Jones is good and ready. I don't even know whether he'll want to go back to London. I don't know if I want him to go back to that house, not if it means going back to a place that's boarded up and graffitied and a big fucking reminder of all the shit that happened to him."

"Harry, Ned, Toby and Rufus are getting it fixed up actually," Claire said in a small voice and Dan could see how much she just wanted to be helpful, even if, like him, she was rubbish at showing it.

"Thanks."

"It's fine," she shrugged. "Rufus mentioned a writing competition you might be interested in as well. Some 'Voice of a Generation' type thing. I didn't know if you'd be interested or whether you still wanted to write at all but... You're a good writer, Dan. I don't know if I've ever actually said that to you, but you are..."

"Thank you," Dan said again, softly.

He thought back to the notebook and how Jones had spent the first half hour of that morning kissing every inch of Dan he could reach whilst reciting back his favourite parts and explaining why Dan was the best writer he'd ever read. Perhaps it was worth a shot. He wanted to give Claire a hug and go inside where it was warm but there was one more thing he needed to make sure Claire was clear on.

"We haven't just been out here shagging like rabbits, by the way."

"Look, Dan. I really don't need to-"

"Yes, you obviously do, Claire, or you wouldn't have brought it up," he spoke over her with more venom than necessary and forced himself to relax. "But its not like... Claire..." She was looking at him now with infuriating sympathy and he suddenly, desperately wanted to just tell her everything. It had to be better than talking to his mum about his sex life.

"Dan?"

"Last night was... the first time since..."

And suddenly Claire was holding him in a hug tighter than any he'd given her and he wanted to cry and tell her just how much it had meant to him, that Jones finally wanted to be with him again. And how amazing it had been to wake up to Jones' warm skin against his the next morning and how Jones had kissed him and kissed him, like a door had been reopened after being locked for so long and Jones was only just remembering that they could exist as something beautiful together. And how overwhelmingly important it had been to be able to lay himself bare and trust Jones with his body and heart.

So he did.

And when he was done they shared a cigarette in silence, before the rain started again and forced them back inside where, it seemed, Christmas wasn't quite ready to end after all.


	45. Chapter 45

Sasha unlocked her front door and scooped up the post from the mat. She could hear her sisters singing along to _Westlife_ in their room and a clatter from the kitchen that indicated that Toby was hard at work on her 'surprise' anniversary tea. Collecting the mail was not usually her job, she was the last person to get in of an evening and gathering up the letters from the doorway was supposed to be the job of whoever arrived home first, but Sasha decided to let it slide this one time and put them in their assigned place on the hall table to be read later. Tonight was supposed to be a special occasion and she wanted to be in a good mood for it.

Toby was making risotto, going by the delicious smell of butter, mushrooms and white wine, and a glance into the sitting room confirmed her suspicion that he had spent the last few hours cleaning the house with extreme thoroughness. They had officially been together for two years and Sasha had never expected to find a man so happy to follow her lead and who would never dream of standing in the way of her ambitions and career. Not to mention a man who worshipped her, loved her and treated her sisters as if they were his own. She certainly hadn't expected to find such a man working as a secretary in Shoreditch, but life could be strange and unexpected sometimes and she was really quite pleased about that.

She walked quietly up the stairs and past her sisters' room to the one that she shared with Toby and felt her heart melt when she saw the immaculate room and carefully made bed. There were rose petals scattered across the sheets and candles ready to be lit and Sasha felt her chest flutter because she had never entertained the thought that a person would want to do something so romantic for her.

She changed into a simple yet stylish dress, because if Toby was going to such effort then she wasn't about to let him down, and touched up her make-up before heading back toward the stairs but looked in on her sisters first. They had both come out of their shell in the last eighteen months and Sasha knew that their relationship as a family had improved dramatically since she had finished her degree and started at a small firm specialising in issues of equal rights in the workforce. She had Catherine Ashcroft to thank for that and one day she hoped to actually meet and thank the woman in person.

The girls were sitting on the floor between their beds sharing a pizza and belting 'You Raise Me Up!' and Sasha closed their door firmly so that she wouldn't have to listen to that song on repeat for the entire night.

Down in the dining room soft lounge music filtered gently through the stereo speakers and the only light was from the tall candles in the centre of the table. The flutter returned, only stronger, and Sasha turned on her heel and walked quickly back out into the front hallway to practice her breathing exercises before she started to lose her composure.

She did love Toby and in the last two years he had matured more than she would have thought possible. He always remembered to compliment her shoes and notice her accessories, and to keep the house tidy and make sure the girls finished their homework before the television went on. He tried very hard and he was a very good boyfriend but Sasha had a sudden, strange feeling that Toby was perhaps hinting at wanting something more. And Sasha needed a chance to analyse that before dealing with the emotions that Toby wore so openly that she often worried that the real world would one day crush his naivety entirely.

She picked up the day's post again, to give herself a distraction, and noticed that among the bills was a small, square envelope with a northern postmark. More than that, she noticed the flowing handwriting of Catherine Ashcroft which made her heart jolt in an entirely different way.

Sasha opened the envelope carefully and slid out the sand coloured card that was inside, holding her breath in anticipation of what she would read.

_Dearest Sasha, Toby, Kayla and Alyssa_

_It is with great pleasure that Drs Catherine and Roger Ashcroft formally invite you to the joining of their son Mr Daniel Roger McFarlane Ashcroft to Mr T. Jones Pearce in Civil Partnership, to be held at the Hornsea Town Hall on January 1st, 2005 at 2 p.m._

_Please join us for a simple ceremony followed by cocktails, music and good company. See the attached paper for a list of available accommodation in the area and please do not hesitate to contact us with any queries or additional requirements._

_Yours in joy,_

_Catherine and Roger Ashcroft._

_P.s. Daniel has requested no presents be given as he has - "More than enough sh*t to worry about without having to unwrap half a dozen unwanted toasters" which we have taken to mean that your attendance and support shall be gift enough._

Sasha let out a sniff, which was unexpected but probably warranted considering the love and sentiment that seemed to flow from the words on the simple card. They didn't see much of Dan and Jones and she hadn't heard anything to indicate an engagement before now but then again, considering how well they had hidden their relationship for the first half a dozen years, perhaps it wasn't so surprising. They were still very private people which was difficult considering Jones spent a good deal of time traveling between London and the continent as a guest DJ and was currently composing music for a French film that had been tipped as a stand out at next year's Cannes festival.

Dan was drawing his own share of the spot light with the publication of his first book, detailing the reality of living with mental illness and the social stigma attached to it. Sasha had read it in one sitting. She hadn't meant to but she had started it on a Sunday morning and hadn't been able to stop until she was done, which had been at around three o'clock the next morning, but she didn't regret it. Dan's writing was as acidic as ever in it's attack on society but was just as harsh in its obvious hatred for his own illness and weaknesses. It was painful to read through the thought processes which had led to some of Dan's more cringeworthy moments and heartbreaking to learn what it was like to live with and care for someone struggling with anxiety and insomnia, but it was enlightening as well and every event was punctuated with dry, dark humour that turned it from being just a piece of social commentary and into an addictive read. And number 19 on Waterstones bestsellers list for two solid months.

They were living more in the public eye than ever and it was no wonder that when they weren't busy with their work they disappeared back to the small house at Hornsea. It always made Claire tut when they did so, but Sasha knew that Claire would worry about her brother no matter what he did and his apparently antisocial behaviour was just a convenient channel for her concern.

When she did manage to convince Dan and Jones to come out to dinner Sasha and Harry spent a good part of the evening distracting Claire from her desire to make Dan engage 'properly' in conversation.

Sasha didn't believe there was anything to be concerned about because Dan had never been comfortable in social situations, but she also knew better than to try and convince Claire. As far as Sasha could see, Dan was actually coping better with the pressures of social interaction than he'd used to. The underlying anger at the world was gone, as was most of the paranoia, if the more relaxed slope of his shoulders was any indicator. Dan even tolerated Ned and Rufus's adoration in a way he'd never been able to before and whenever she saw him his hand was always linked tightly with Jones' and she felt certain that this required a great deal more self-confidence and energy than Claire gave her brother credit for.

And now he and Jones were getting married.

Sasha tapped the corner of the invitation against her lips as she mulled over the implications and possibilities of that statement but stopped and dropped the card to the table when Toby appeared in the doorway, his expression, as ever, a mix of apprehension and hope.

"Hi," he said, twisting a dish cloth absently in his hands. "Thought I heard you come in. You look amazing. I love those shoes, they match the bracelet I bought you for your birthday. And you're wearing it and all. Of course you are, you're, like, the goddess of style. Only more stylish... Dinner's ready. If you want to, you know, like... join me?"

Sasha walked forward and brought her hands up to Toby's cheeks, placing light, affectionate kisses to his lips before drawing him into a deeper, more passionate embrace. Toby kissed like he was caught between intense enthusiasm and fear that even when Sasha's tongue was in his mouth he had somehow misinterpreted her signals and was about to be told off. It was endearing and Sasha hugged him tight for as long as she dared before stepping back, sliding her hand into his, and allowing him to lead her into the dinning room which was now set for dinner. And on the table, sitting hopefully between Sasha's bowl of risotto and glass of wine, was a small, black, velvet covered ring box.

Sasha smiled and felt her heart flutter in her chest with such force that it was almost painful. Dan had written in his book about the struggle of coming to terms with being content and Sasha understood that feeling all too well but, as Toby squeezed her hand and led her to her chair, she made the decision not to struggle anymore. Contentment had found her and she was going to grab hold of it and never let it go.

* * *

><p>"Babe! Oi Ned, come quick! The most wicked piece of snail mail just flew through your shoot!"<p>

Ned hurried into the front room, grinning at Rufus and offering him a beer. Rufus gave him a kiss on the cheek in return and then handed over the letter that had made him so excited. Ned could see why he'd made a fuss. The letter was addressed to both of them for a start, which had never happened before, and their names were written in fancy cursive handwriting that was well posh.

Rufus pulled him over to sit on the sofa as he looked inside the envelope that Rufus had already opened and Ned felt himself get excited when he saw the invitation inside. He read through it, feeling the emotions start to bubble up from his stomach to his chest and throat like puke but, like, happy puke or something, and told himself that he really shouldn't cry because Rufus would totally take the piss if he did. He'd save his tears for the actual wedding because nobody would be able to tease him for crying at a wedding, right? And right now he was holding an invitation to the nuptials of Dan and DJ Jones.

"Can you believe it?" Rufus asked, pressed close to Ned's side, rereading the words along with him. "The Ashcroft Matriarch invited us to Dan's actual wedding."

"Yeah," Ned nodded. "But as, like, a couple."

Ned wasn't upset about this because, when it came down to it, he would love for people to assume he and Rufus were a totally loved up couple who wore, like, matching ties to dinner parties and shit, but Rufus probably wasn't as keen. They worked together, they did YouTube videos together, and they had a pretty big following on Facebook (and Ned had read all the stuff their fans had written about how they were a cute couple and totally had chemistry) but they didn't actually live together and their relationship was more like friends with benefits. Those benefits being epic snogging sessions and blow jobs that left them both breathless. Ned was a big fan of kissing, just generally, but he'd never imagined he would enjoy going down on a guy, or that he'd get off so much on watching another dude take his junk all the way down their throat. Finding out he was massively into cock, as long as it was Rufus's cock, was a bit of a mind blower but he was cool with it, and he hoped Rufus was cool with it too. They hadn't really discussed it much.

"That's... cool," Rufus said and Ned tried to act casual as he turned to face him, their bodies pressed pretty tightly to one another where the sofa had dipped and forced Rufus nearly into Ned's lap.

"Really! I mean," Ned stammered. "It's cool with me too if it's cool with you, and like, it's totally rad to be like, metro and defying the social stigmas attached to human sexuality by a narrow minded society, right?"

"What?" Rufus asked and Ned tried not to swoon too much at how adorable Rufus's confused face was.

"I, um, read it in a thing?" Ned suggested, kicking himself for being too eager and looking like a total nerd.

"Oh, right," Rufus nodded again, shuffling closer until their faces were so close Ned wasn't sure whether he was smelling his own beer breath or Rufus's. Not that he minded.

"Um..."

"Well I'm cool with that, what you said," Rufus told him, his eyes focused on Ned's lips in a really distracting way. "About being a couple and all. I reckon that'd be genius."

Rufus closed the gap between them, taking Ned's bottom lip between his two and sucking in the way that always made Ned's head spin and his cock jump to attention. He let his eyes slide shut and moaned into Rufus's mouth as he felt his best mate's hand creep up the inside of his shirt to tweak his nipple, pulling Rufus down on top of him and deepening the kiss until they were both panting and rutting against each other desperately.

Friends with benefits had been great, Ned thought, but boyfriends - having a boyfriend was fucking fantastic. And he never would have got here if it hadn't been for Dan. Dan was still, and always would be, the absolute king of cool.


	46. Chapter 46

**This is it, the end. It's been an intense two months and I want to say a big thank you to Pikabun91 and my beloved Worriedeye for your reviews. So, thank you! xx**

**And now here we go...**

* * *

><p>Jones sat on the front porch and watched the stars as they sparkled out over the sea. He always felt old sitting out here in the creaking rocking chair. It reminded him of Hemingway for some reason, there was even an dogeared copy of <em>'The Old Man and the Sea'<em> on the bookshelf inside and Jones had sat out here and watched the sunsets so many times that it felt like a reoccurring dream rather than his real life. Only this dream was a pleasant one.

And now the sun had set, the sky had turned from dusky blue to plum to the colour that Jones had come to associate with the piping hot blueberries hidden in the pancakes that Dan still made him for breakfast at least once a week. Just as the sky was beginning to bleed to an inky black the frozen quiet of the night was - not broken, but infiltrated - by a record being set in motion in the sitting room.

He turned his head as Dan appeared at the door, two steaming mugs of tea in his hands and a tired but content smile on his face. Jones smiled back as Dan crossed to the rocking chair, put the mugs down on the ground and scooped Jones up in his arms to sit in the chair with Jones in his lap.

Jones let out a laugh and snuggled himself more firmly in Dan's lap, breathing in his warm smell and kissing firmly at his partner's neck. At his husband's neck. Dan chuckled in response and squeezed him tight before reaching down to retrieve their drinks.

This time last night they had been dancing in the Hornsea village hall, surrounded by their family, friends, and half the town and it had been magnificent, if a bit surreal. They'd made vows and signed all the paperwork, and come Monday Jones would be starting the process of officially changing his name. He had a ring on his finger, which was bizarre, and there had been too many people at the wedding telling him that life would be different now, that _he_ was different now, but Jones didn't think so.

He and Dan had always belonged to one another, the only difference now was that they didn't have to hide it. It had been announced, it was legal, no one would be keeping them from each others bedside if - God forbid - they ever ended up in hospital again. And really, when it all came down to it, it had just been a really nice, fun thing to do.

* * *

><p>They'd let Cathy organise most of it. She'd tried to retire the year before, and had lasted four whole months before she couldn't stand it and retrained as a registrar. Organising and officiating at her son's civil partnership ceremony had not only kept her busy but had made her happier than Jones had imagined possible. She'd held back her tears during the service in the name of professionalism but when it was all done she had hugged both himself and Dan tightly and sobbed as she told them how proud she was of them both.<p>

Claire had cried quietly through the whole service, along with Ned, while Toby had looked misty-eyed, Rufus a bit uncomfortable, Harry thrilled and Sasha beautifully composed as always. There were people from Jones' old techno club and Stanley Knives rubbing shoulders with the Hornsea Crochet Club, and French filmmakers hobnobbing with Dan's editor and publisher, and a huddle of confused Ashcroft relatives in the middle trying to figure out which of the strange assortment of guests were Jones' relatives.

There had been photos and speeches and toasts and all the usual wedding stuff (Well, most of the usual wedding stuff. There hadn't been any garter or bouquet throwing.) and in the middle of it all, looking more handsome than any man had a right to be, had been Dan.

Jones had been completely clueless about what to wear for the day, and Dan had been just as lost. Neither man had ever been to a wedding and neither wanted to try and wear white or some sort of hired tuxedo. In the end they'd just headed down to the markets on one of their stays in London and had pieced together outfits based on what they liked and what felt comfortable. Claire (and most of Dan's family) had looked mortified when Dan had walked to the front of the hall wearing a sixty-year-old black suit with a scuffed pair of brown leather shoes but Jones had been pleased. He wanted Dan to look like himself and as they'd stood together by the windows that looked out over the sea they'd smiled at one another, sharing the secret joke that no one else ever got, and it was brilliant.

_"__Naw, there we are. My sexy hobo, look at you."_

_"__Look at _you_, you cyberpunk, artful dodger, pixie... what ever you are. God, I love you."_

And they'd kissed in front of a room full of people, which had been terrifying right up until the moment that Dan's hands had slid up his cheeks and into his hair, at which point the room and the people and all of the anxiety just slipped away. He could feel Dan's hands shaking and his breath had been uneven and shallow, a counter point to Jones' own trembling, like the oscillation of a needle in a groove - like even when they were terrified they fit together perfectly.

Dan's thumb had swept across his lower lip and Jones' lips had parted with a sigh, and just as he felt Dan's mouth on his and felt that he was drifting away, lost in a world of dark, subtle bass and a warm tongue and scratchy, grey round the edges, beard, just at that moment the room had erupted in applause. Giggles had bubbled from Jones' throat and Dan had been laughing into his mouth in answer as they'd tried to continue their first kiss as a married couple to the whoops and cheers - and a wolf whistle from Dan's dad - and when their lips had finally parted the clapping had only increased and Jones had turned to the small crowd, knowing that his face was hot and red from embarrassment and barely able to keep his eyes open from the force of his smile, and gave a little bow. And just like that, they were married.

* * *

><p>And now the guests had gone home. The next day Dan and Jones hadn't moved from their bed until midday and that was only because Harry had texted them a warning to say that the Ashcrofts were on their way over for lunch. and they hadn't done much more with the afternoon than shower, pull on some vaguely clean clothes and drink tea. It wasn't particularly rock'n'roll and only added to Jones' suspicion that he was getting old but Dan hadn't been able to wipe the dopey grin from his face and had spent the afternoon kissing him and wrapping his arms around him at every possible opportunity, even though his parents were watching, and even though he had to dethrone Stardust twice in order to get Jones into his lap. And now he had Jones in his lap again and was holding him as though he was worried that if he let go Jones would disappear, like it had all just been a strange dream or fancy, a deluded jumble of hopes that would never come true.<p>

"Hey?" he whispered, gulping the last of his tea.

"Hmm?" Dan rumbled in response, raising an eyebrow questioningly as he watched Jones over the rim of his mug.

"I love you."

Dan smiled and put his mug back on the ground, plucking Jones' mug from his hands as well so that they could hold and touch one another without the fear of spilling tea in anyone's lap.

"I love you too. How're you feeling?"

The thing Jones had learned about Dan, very early on, was that there wasn't much point in lying. If he lied and Dan took him at his word he felt rubbish for being deceptive. If he lied and Dan called him out on it he felt worse because it made Dan disappointed. If he told the truth, no matter what it was, Dan usually rewarded him with kisses. Jones was easily trained and he knew it, but that didn't make telling the truth less difficult sometimes.

"I'm a bit sore," he admitted, and Dan leaned in to kiss his forehead lovingly, a hand straying down to rub at the tight muscle of Jones' thigh.

"Poor love," he purred, massaging the aching muscle in long, practiced strokes. "I've worn you out."

Jones tipped his head back and laughed, enjoying the way the sound travelled through the still, night air, Dan's chuckle adding a deep harmony.

"No way, old man," he said breathlessly, looking back into Dan's eyes. "You'll never wear me out. Stuck with me for life, remember?"

"Good," Dan mumbled, his grin turning wolfish. "You remember our first kiss?"

"Like I could ever forget it," Jones said, nuzzling into Dan's chest and pressing a kiss to his husband's neck. "Best kiss in the history of the universe that was."

"Mmm. I think I found a rival for it yesterday."

"Genius," Jones whispered, planting another kiss lower down on Dan's throat. "Dan," he asked slowly. "Do you remember our first _time_?"

"I don't think I could possibly forget that."

Jones smiled against Dan's chest, feeling the warmth of the scarf he had made, his first attempt as crochet, loose around Dan's collar.

"I was too scared to rim you."

"I didn't want you to!" Dan responded, sounding more amused than anything else. Jones laughed quietly.

"We were both such fucking prudes."

"We were young!"

"Well..." he said, trying to sound seductive whilst his body seemed determined to start giggling. "We're not young now..."

With a growl Dan stood, holding Jones tight in his arms as the rocking chair swayed violently and Jones' cane clattered to the ground. Jones let the giggles escape as Dan strode purposefully through the sitting room, with its recently painted portrait of Dan on the wall, and the funny grey cat asleep on the ancient stereo-come-decks, and the laptops, and stacks of books and wool and art supplies.

They still had the House of Jones down in Shoreditch and Jones still loved it more than he had thought he would, but he was happy to call this their home now and as Dan reached the bedroom Jones held on tight, dragging Dan down onto the mattress with him in a fierce kiss that soon had Dan moaning with desire and love, a music that Jones knew he would never get bored of. And beyond the door the cat purred and the record played out until there was only the scimming of the vinyl as it gradually slowed, and the hum of the old fridge and the rattle of the oil heater, complaining of the cold. Beyond the window the sea lapped gently against the sand and the wind whispered like lovers' breaths and Jones smiled blissfully as the sounds came together in his mind like a symphony.

Then Dan smiled at him, and there was no pain behind his eyes, and no fear, or bitterness, only joy and arousal and love, and contentment. And it was wonderful.

**THE END.**


End file.
